CROWS. 63 



hedgehog in the wood pile, which I killed, and set the trap 

 again. I went again the next morning at five a.m., and 

 found another large hedgehog in the same gin, making 

 three hedgehogs in one night caught at the duck's nest. 

 Since then the duck has been sitting in the same nest un- 

 disturbed by anything. The second case occurred recently. 

 One of my men came to me with a face as long as a fiddle. 

 ' Master,' says he, ' the crows have been and spoilt a 

 pheasant's nest that you knew of down the wood, by the 

 withy bed.' I asked him if he was sure it was crows. 

 ' Come and see for yourself,' was the answer. I went, and 

 sure enough there were nine eggs destroyed out of fifteen. 

 They appeared to have been bitten half through. It then 

 came to my mind about the hedgehogs eating the duck's 

 eggs, and I was determined to find out and prove what it 

 was destroying these eggs. I took the remaining six eggs 

 home, and inserted a very small quantity of strychnine into 

 each egg, and sealed them up again, and took them back to 

 the nest where the others were destroyed. The next morning 

 the man and I went to see if anything was there, when we 

 found an immense hedgehog flat on his belly, and very much 

 swelled up, not a yard from the nest, and quite dead, and as 

 if in the act of crawling away from the nest. Only two of 

 the eggs were partially eaten. Is not this conclusive evidence 

 that the hedgehog is a great enemy to the pheasant and 

 partridge ? " And, I may add, evidence that crows and other 

 birds often suffer for guilt not their own. 



I might enlarge to any extent on jays and magpies, those 

 picturesque brigands of the coppices. As imported by its 

 specific name, Morris observes, the acorn is the most choice 

 morceau of the jay, and for them he even searches under the 

 snow ; but he also feeds on more delicate fruits such as peas 

 and cherries, as well as on beechmast, nuts, and berries, corn, 

 worms, cockchaffers, and other insects, larvae, frogs and other 

 reptiles, even mice, and is deterred by no qualms or scruples 

 in making away with young birds. These birds, in the 



