HOUSEHOLD PESTS 261 



and cats, which are said to be poisoned by them. 

 This is hardly strange, for everything which they 

 touch is contaminated by their repulsive odour. 

 Even hedgehogs are a failure, though tradition 

 makes them thrive on cockroaches. An early 

 ambition of the present writer's was to live in a 

 house stocked with black beetles, in order to keep 

 a hedgehog. At last this came about. The new 

 house swarmed with the insects ; and we had the 

 luck to find a hedgehog in a cow-shed, and brought 

 it home. It would not uncurl in the kitchen, so 

 we put it in a dark cupboard, where there were 

 enough of the creatures to * feed right a great hog,' 

 as the cook, who was disappointed in the animal's 

 size, remarked disparagingly. But the hedgehog 

 never uncurled. We looked at him night and day, 

 and found beetles running over him, and speculating 

 when they would begin to eat him. At last we 

 carried him to the lawn, where he did move, and 

 walked into the tennis-net, and had to be cut out, 

 to the great destruction of the meshes. Black 

 beetle killing is a limited but respectable calling 

 in London ; and a leading member of the craft 

 sends his card round at intervals to owners of the 

 larger mansions in London, to intimate that in his 

 opinion the time has come when his services ought 

 to be required in the houses which he has attended 



