386 THE GAME PRESERVER'S GUIDE. 



their quarters near game, they should be got rid of as 

 quickly as possible. They are very fond of eggs, as well as 

 of the young birds. 



THE HEDGEHOG (Erinaceus Europceus). 



The hedgehog has been the subject of a great deal of con- 

 troversy lately on the nature of its habits ; one party holding 

 it to be a vegetable eater, and entirely innocent of all 

 noxious propensities, while the other brands it as a destroyer 

 of young game, an egg-sucker, and a cow-milker. That it 

 does occasionally eat birds is easily shown, because it is so 

 often kept alive in large gardens, where it is not starved, 

 and thereby compelled to eat what is offered to it. Here a 

 freshly-killed bird is greedily seized and devoured, while it 

 is only when long deprived of insects and worms, as well as 

 flesh, that the hedgehog will eat roots or vegetables. In a 

 state of nature, I believe, the animal lives chiefly on insects 

 and worms, with the addition of eggs in the breeding season, 

 of which it is particularly fond but this is only because it is 

 not furnished with weapons for catching birds or quadrupeds. 

 The hedgehog is provided with a grubbing snout like that 

 of the pig, and this is adduced to prove that it searches for 

 roots like the latter animal ; but grubs and worms are also- 

 found in this way, and it is for them that its nose is at 

 work rather than for the roots of scutch-grass, &c., which 

 it is said to be in search of. The external appearance of 

 the hedgehog is too well known to require description, either 

 pictorial or in type, and I have not, therefore, appended a 

 portrait of it. During the summer it is very active, espe- 

 cially in the evening, when worms come forth, and it may 

 be seen popping about in search of what it can find on the 

 borders of woods and copses, where it remains concealed 

 during the day. It is more or less inactive during the 

 winter, but whether it is a true hybernator is a disputed 

 question. This, however, is a point of little interest to the 

 game preserver, and I shall not therefore enter upon it. 

 That the hedgehog is destructive to game is, I think, clearly 

 established ; for whether or not it eats the animals them- 

 selves, it no doubt sucks the eggs of pheasants, partridges, 



