106 ERINACEAU^. 



ridding the kitchens of the innumerable hosts of cock- 

 roaches by which they are infested,* and also renders it 

 useful rather than noxious to the gardener and the farmer. 

 Sir William Jardine, however, mentions their fondness 

 for eggs, and states that they do considerable mischief 

 by destroying game in the breeding season, and that they 

 will even enter a hen-house, and turning the hen off her 

 nest, proceed to devour the eggs. 



This statement of their partiality for eggs is fully borne 

 out by gamekeepers, who catch many Hedgehogs in 

 steel traps baited with hens' eggs. We can from actual 

 experience affirm this to be correct, and moreover, that 

 traps baited with the entrails of rabbits, or indeed with 

 any other animal matter, will take many Hedgehogs, as 

 well as other vermin, for as vermin these creatures are 

 generally regarded. But the Hedgehog is not wholly 

 undeserving of the charge of attacking young game, as 

 the following statement, for the accuracy of which we 

 are ourselves responsible, will sufficiently illustrate. 

 Hearing the cries of a young hare in a field of wheat 

 near Welford-on-Avon, we hastened, gun in hand, to the 

 spot. The wheat was about the height of the knee, and 

 too thick to allow of a sight of what was going on 

 without a very near approach, and as the presence of a 

 Stoat or Weasel was' suspected, a shot was directed to 

 where the wheat was seen moving. Rushing to the spot, 

 we found, instead of Stoat or Weasel, a Hedgehog and a 

 Hare about the size of a Rat. As due allowance had 

 not been made for the height of the wheat, it was found 

 on exainination that the whole of the charge had passed 

 over both the creatures, and they were unhurt, excepting 



* We have seen a Hedgehog in a London kitchen push its way beneath a piece 

 of carpet in all directions, and heard it at intervals crushing up the cock- 

 roaches which it met with. In a short time it freed the place of these pests. 



