70 My Pond. 



and pleasure. When the butterflies disappear, forth 

 come the moths ; when the day-beetles retire, they 

 have successors in as brilliant a company, the glow- 

 worm among them ; when the lark and linnet, the 

 thrush and the blackbird, the robin and the wren, 

 retire to rest, and are silent, then come forth the 

 night-jar, that queer compound of swallow and hawk, 

 and the owls and the bats are busy. When the squirrels 

 and the voles have curled themselves up to sleep the 

 one in his airy swinging cradle at the top of the tree, 

 the other in his nest among its kindly protecting rootage 

 down below the hedgehog comes warily forth ; and 

 often have I seen him, with his quick, scuttling, old 

 womanish walk, making his way about the hedges 

 and the dry ditches round the pond, intently seeking 

 for his food. An assiduous slug, snail, and insect 

 hunter, he has a great deal to bear from the country 

 folks, who blame him for sucking the cows' teats, and 

 for taking the eggs of the partridges and pheasants, 

 and even capturing and devouring chickens now and 

 then. An unrelenting war is waged against him by 

 those who should be his best friends the farmers. 

 I do not believe that he is guilty of some of the crimes 

 of which he is accused ; though, of course, in domesti- 

 cation, he is very fond of milk. He may take an egg 

 now and then, but then he renders good service for it. 

 There is such a meek, self-depreciating look about him 

 such a reluctant sort of assent to yielding, even to 

 his own necessities, that were I inclined to believe in 

 transmigration of souls, I would say that the hedge- 

 hogs are tenanted by those who regard every act as an 

 atonement for injuries done to others. 



All nature's workers are thus, in a sense, only half- 

 timers after all. How often in the moonlight have I 



