THE COMMON MOLE. 41 



Northumberland, had a hedgehog which performed the duty of a 

 turnspit, quite as well as a turnspit -dog. 



When killed, the hedgehog may be turned to good account. 

 Lovell says that " the skin being pulled off, the flesh larded, 

 and stuck with cloves, may be roasted, and so some commend it 

 as a pleasant meat."* Mr. John Denson, jun., says that its flesh 

 is occasionally eaten in England by poor people, and is said 

 to be agreeable meat, looking very nice, and having yellow fat. 

 Mr. L. W, Clarke, of Birmingham, says that some years ago he 

 observed a gang of gipsies roasting a hedgehog, which they ate 

 in his presence, and declared to be very good meat. The 

 farmers on some parts of the Continent fix the prickly skin of 

 a hedgehog on the muzzle of a calf that they wish to wean; and I 

 have known coach-horses in England to be broken of their habit of 

 hugging the pole by a hedgehog's skin being fastened round it. 



The ancient Romans used to employ the skin of a hedgehog 

 to raise the nap on cloth, for which purpose the prickly heads of 

 the teasel were also used, as they still are. 



THE COMMON MOLE. (Talpa vulgaris.) 

 Moldiwarp, Munt, Want, or Hoont. 



He, not unlike the great ones of mankind, 



Disfigures earth ; and, plotting in the dark, 



Toils much to earn a monumental pile, 



That may record the mischiefs he has done. Cowper. 



The common mole inhabits the whole of England and the 

 * Panzoologicomineralogia, 1661, p. 73. 



