JUNE 127 



by man. Justly or unjustly, it has earned the worst 

 of characters as an egg-stealer and chicken assassin. 

 Some such accusation was inevitable, seeing that every 

 creature of furtive habit and crepuscular activity stands 

 condemned by the average gamekeeper ; but it is very 

 difficult to get at the truth. Mr. J. G. Millais has 

 gone very systematically and sympathetically into the 

 question, and it is disappointing to find that he cannot 

 clear the hedgehog's reputation. ' Its food,' he sums 

 up, ' consists chiefly of insects, slugs, and worms ; but it 

 will also eat frogs, young rats, mice, lizards, birds' eggs, 

 and young birds.' * But on page 120 he quotes a writer 

 in the Field as follows : 



' Hedgehogs eat raw meat voraciously, and would unques- 

 tionably kill chicks in a coop. . . . The common accusation 

 that they suck eggs is erroneous, for they cannot crack them. 

 A rat chisels through an egg-shell with her lower incisor 

 teeth ; a hedgehog can only crunch, and the gape of his jaws 

 will not admit an egg as large as a sparrow's. I once shut 

 up an unhappy hedgehog for three days with no food or 

 water except a raw egg. It made no attempt to open it. I 

 then gave an egg to a white rat, who had certainly never 

 seen one before in his life. He went for it in a moment, 

 and rolled it across the room to his box, pushing it in front 

 of him like a brewer's man trundling a barrel. ... I think 

 there is no question who is the egg-stealer.' 



Unluckily this witness has chosen to remain anony- 

 mous, signing himself B. D., so one cannot cross- 

 examine him. 



It is a matter which would be worth deciding, as 

 any observant person might do one way or other once 



1 British Mammals, i. 11. 



