tHE ^iAM-MALlA OF DORSETSHIRE. 1 I 



and elasticity of tliis covering is such that it will fall a consider- 

 able height without being in the least hurt. I have seen 

 them in Portland at night, on a light being turned on them, 

 curl themselves up and roll down the hill like a football. Bell 

 states that the flesh of this animal is eaten in some parts of the 

 Continent, and occasionally by the rustics in the middle parts of 

 England. In Dorsetshire and Hampshire it forms one of the 

 gipsies' staple forms of food. There is an ancient prejudice 

 still prevailing that it sucks cows. This, however, is about as 

 well founded an accusation as that of Pliny, who assures us that 

 it climbs trees, knocks off the apples and peas, and, throwing 

 itself upon them that they may stick to its spines, trots off with 

 the prize. The voice of the hedgehog is not often heard, but it 

 is an odd sort of sound. About midnight a year ago a noise was 

 heard in my garden as of a person in pain. On going out with 

 a lantern, it was found to proceed from a hedgehog. In the 

 winter it retires to its warm, soft nest of moss and leaves, and, 

 rolling itself up into a compact ball, passes the dreary season in 

 a state of dreamless slumber, undisturbed by the violence of the 

 tempest, and only rendered still more profoundly torpid by the 

 bitterest frost. However, its fleas are by no means torpid, and 

 often jump out on a person who disturbs the nest. 



Family TALPID^:. 

 Genus TALPA. 



INIole or Want, Talpa Eiiropwa. 



Pretty well everyone knows that the mole spends most of its 

 time underground, that it forms runs, or galleries, on a more or 

 less definite plan ; but probably few are aware of the wonderful 

 fortress it constructs for its habitation, a plan of which is given 

 in Bell's " British Quadrupeds." Its principal food is the 

 earth-worm, which it occasionally follows towards the surface 

 with such eagerness that it actually throws itself outside of its 

 burrow upon the ground. One, \\liich was captured here alive, 

 I put into a large square box full of cobwebs, and it was 



