THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN. 263 



the case is analogous to that of the fisher and the 

 porcupine. The fisher, which is a larger member of 

 the polecat family, is particularly partial to porcu- 

 pine, and the deadly quills of this creature, each 

 quill armed with numerous minute barbs which 

 prevent it from being withdrawn should it penetrate 

 an animal's flesh, curiously enough cause the fisher 

 no discomfort Entering its flesh, they work in- 

 ward to lie under the skin, finally collecting along 

 the back to work out at the roots of the tail. Any 

 normal creature that attacks a porcupine is almost 

 inevitably doomed to a fate of the most terrible and 

 lingering kind ; but in this respect the fisher is an 

 exception, just as the polecat may be an exception 

 in its methods of dealing with the far less formidable 

 hedgehog. 



As to stoats habitually killing hedgehogs, it 

 would seem unlikely, for I have known hedgehogs 

 to amble about in the dusk of evening in apparent 

 immunity where stoats were most abundant. The 

 keeper with a club and with a penchant for killing 

 every four-footed creature he sees, the gipsy-boy, 

 and the terrier are the hedgehog's only foes that 

 count for anything. 



HIBERNATION. 



By early autumn the hedgehog has become fat 

 and lubbardly, and as the weather turns colder, 

 and the russet leaves come drifting to earth, the 

 animal grows more and more torpid each day. 

 Its quills are not very adequate for keeping out 

 the wind ; but its skin is strong and thick and 

 not very sensitive to cold, and under the skin is 

 the hedgehog's real overcoat a thick layer of fat 

 which resists the cold, and on which the animal 

 subsists during its winter sleep. 



