HEDGE-HOGS. 



What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer con- 

 cerning the defect of natural affection in the ostrich, may be 

 well applied to the bird we are talking of : " She is hardened 

 against her young ones, as though they were not hers : 

 Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he 

 imparted to her understanding."* 



Query, Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a 

 season, or does she drop several in different nests, according 

 as opportunity offers ? 



LETTER XXXI. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



SELBORNE, February 22, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens arid fields. 

 The manner in which they eat the roots of the plantain in my 

 grass walks is very curious : with their upper mandible, which 

 is much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, 

 and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves 

 untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they 

 destroy a very troublesome weed ;* but they deface the walks 

 in some measure, by digging little round holes. It appears, 

 by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no 

 inconsiderable part of their food, j- In June last, I procured a 



* Job, xxxix. 16, 17. 



f We are surprised to find that some naturalists of the present day deny 

 the fact that hedge-hogs eat flesh. Buffon says, speaking of some tame 

 ones, " They ate caterpillars, beetles, and worms, and were also very 

 fond of flesh, which they devoured, boiled or raw." Later observations 

 prove them to be predatory animals. We saw one in the possession of 

 Mr Woodcock, surgeon, Bury, Lancashire, which he got from a peasant, 

 who caught it in the act of eating a toad, and which it pertinaciously kept 

 hold of when taken, rolling itself up, and keeping firm hold of the toad 

 with its mouth. We attempted to pull the toad from it, but it held its 

 victim the firmer. It had consumed the head and one of the legs, when 

 discovered. Hedge-hogs also feed on eggs, and do considerable mischief 

 to game during the breeding season. They have been known to enter 

 a hen -house, drive the hen off her nest, and devour the eggs. 



In 1829, a labourer of the name of Copland, while abroad in the fields 

 near Terraughty, Dumfriesshire, heard a sound which convinced him 

 that a hare was at hand, and in jeopardy. The squeaking, however, 

 soon ceased, and the man, after looking carefully round, came upon a 

 leveret, which was lying dead by the side of a hedge-hog. The enemy 

 had, by this time, coiled himself into a ball ; but, as appearances indicated 

 that he had both bit and smothered the leveret, Copland was so enraged at 



