34 DOWN THE BECK 



cause vile calumnies had attached themselves to 

 him of eating partridges' eggs and being addicted 

 to sucking milk from cows. The latter accusation 

 is simply an impossibility, while as to the former, 

 we are afraid it is too true that he has a sneaking 

 liking for eggs ; but the damage he does is infinitesi- 

 mally small, when not computed by gamekeepers' 

 arithmetic. A pair of hedgehogs making love in 

 their curiously awkward fashion, puffing and blowing 

 like grampuses, is a strange sight ; while the piglings, 

 before their spines have grown, form the most amus- 

 ing of pets. About the saddest spectacle that we 

 ever witnessed was an old hedgehog that had been 

 cut asunder by a train, at a railway crossing, while 

 her brood of six or eight were still round her, un- 

 harmed and wondering what had happened. We 

 transported the poor orphans to the nearest damp 

 ditch and left them to the rough care of Mother 

 Nature. Not very far from the Beck is a colony 

 of badgers, an animal much persecuted where any 

 linger in other parts of the country, but in this 

 East Anglian shire acquiring a decided commercial 

 value. Anything that will encourage foxes is here 

 greatly in request, consequently badgers are deemed 

 useful creatures in a cover, as they make earths 

 which afterwards tempt Reynard to take possession. 

 An angler is a subject of perpetual wonder to cows ; 



