THE MAMMALS OF SHAKSPEARE. 167 
readers of ‘The Zoologist’ may have experimentalized, and can 
enlighten us. 
As an article of food, the Hedgehog, when properly dressed, is 
said to be very good eating, tasting something like a rabbit. The 
old belief in cows being suckled by Hedgehogs is now pretty well 
exploded, even among the most ignorant. In some out-of-the-way 
places, where it is difficult to get properly constructed muzzles for 
weaning calves, I have heard of the skin of an Hedgehog being 
used to answer the same purpose by tying it round the nose-band 
of the calf. 
6 ** 2 Like Hedgehogs, which 
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount 
Their pricks at my footfall,” &c. 
Tempest. Act ii., Scene 2. 
Again :— 
Ist Farry. “ You spotted snake, with double tongue, 
Thorny Hedgehogs, be not seen ; 
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong ; 
Come not near our fairy queen.” 
Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii., Scene 38. 
In King Richard III.. Act i., Scene 2, the word Hedgehog is 
used as an epithet. 
Shakspeare appears to have been well versed in the vernacular 
names of our indigenous wild animals; for, besides the usual name 
of Hedge-hog, the animal is locally called Hedge-pig and Urchin, 
with both of which names Shakspeare was familiar, as the following 
quotations will show :— 
Ist Wircu. “ Thrice the brindled cat hath mew’d.” 
2np Wrrcu. “ Thrice; and once the Hedge-pig whin’d.” 
Macbeth. Act iv., Scene 1. 
* And when they showed me this abhorréd pit, 
They told me, here, at dead time of the night, 
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, 
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, 
Would make such fearful and confuséd cries 
As any mortal body, hearing it, 
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.” 
Titus Andronicus. Act ii., Scene 3. 
VA 
