The Zoologist— May, 1866. 195 



6thly. Mr. WooUey's observation, that the hedgehog would have 

 drunk the life blood of the fowls, had not his timely arrival prevented 

 the tragedy, is mere surmise, without apparent foundation, for if the 

 hedgehog had refused the milk, it is but just to suppose that he would 

 have no immediate appetite for blood. Indeed his capture and 

 captivity-, I should think, were quite sufficient to engross all his 

 thoughts for the first night. Thus you see that I am not a convert to 

 Mr. Woolley's doctrine. My park is well stocked with hedgehogs, and 

 my hen-house has an aperture on a level with it, for the ingress and 

 egress &f the fowls ; still not one solitary hedgehog has ever been seen 

 in the hen-house, or a single fowl or chicken ever known to have been 

 killed by this quadruped. 



By the way, I have a family of milk-white hedgehogs in the 

 park. 



I see, by your December number, that our wise ones in 

 Ornithology have raised the Canada goose to the dignity of a 

 swan. 



It appeared a swan to Cuvier, " Me parait aussi un vrai cygne." 

 According to Peter Pindar, Sir Joseph Banks once thought that a flea 

 might be a lobster. Cuvier was a great philosopher and an honest 

 j;entleman ; and he knew a good deal about the ybrm of some birds: 

 but, for the habits of birds in general he knew as much about them 

 as I did about his own grandmother. 



I cannot hail the Canada goose as a swan for the following 

 reasons ; — 



1st. The swan does not obtain his full adult plumage until the third 

 year; whereas the Canada goose is in mature plumage, like all other 

 geese, by the end of the first year. 2ndly. The swan does not breed 

 till the third year ; but the Canada goose rears its young ones in the 

 second year. 3rdly. The Canada goose will breed with other geese, 

 even with the diniunitive Barnacle goose; slill the swan is never 

 known to make love to any goose. 4thly. The swan takes a mouthful 

 of food, and immediately immerses his beak in the water, when the 

 food undergoes a kind of filtering process ; still the Canada goose 

 never does this. 5lhly. The swan does not feed upon the grass in the 

 pasture ; but the Canada goose lives entirely on it. 6thly. The 

 Canada goose does not pursue, and even kill, its progeny of the 

 former year, at the next breeding- season ; whereas the swan in- 

 variably does this. 7thly. The swan is what may be styled a mute 



