THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN. 



WHAT boy who has ever camped out is 

 unfamiliar with Milord the Hedgehog ? 

 Who has never heard his nocturnal rustling in 

 the leaves, his loud sniffs of inquiry ; and, above 

 all, who has never experienced his unwavering par- 

 tiality for the frying-pan ? Have we not always 

 to hang this universal piece of culinary equipment 

 high in the trees, or bring it into the tent ? 

 Otherwise he will spend half the night climbing 

 in and out of it, and skilfully contriving to mix 

 a maximum amount of the soot of the exterior 

 with the thin grease of the interior. 



But, believe me, the hedgehog is a jewel to have 

 about the camping - ground compared with his 

 counterpart, the Canada porcupine. The hedgehog 

 may possess a strong partiality for anything that 

 suggests the least flavour of salt, but with the 

 porcupine this partiality amounts to a mania. I 

 have known a porcupine to eat a whole packing- 

 case because there was a tradition attached to it to 

 the effect that it once contained salt kippers ; and 

 later, remembering the packing-case, the same por- 

 cupine calmly settled down to eat a hole through 

 a canoe, thinking that, if it wasn't salty, it ought to 

 be ! Having visited the camp twice, a porcupine 

 thinks he owns the place, and you have to clout 

 him out of the same old mischief with the same 

 old frying-pan a dozen times a night. 



The hedgehog is truly an ancient creature, and 

 dates at least from the upper and middle Miocene 

 of European strata. It was well known to the 

 ancient Egyptians, and figured in their art. 



