80 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



heard any. Swallows were observed on to November the 

 third. 



LETTER XXVII 



Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770. 

 Dear Sir, 



Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields. The 

 manner in which they eat their roots of the plantain in 

 my grass-walks is very curious : with their upper mandible, 

 which is much longer than their lower, they bore under 

 the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the 

 tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are service- 

 able, as they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they 

 deface the walks in some measure by digging little round 

 holes. It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the 

 turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. 

 In June last I procured a litter of four or five young hedge- 

 hogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old ; 

 they, I find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not 

 see when they came to my hands. No doubt their spines 

 are soft and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the 

 poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the critical 

 moment of parturition : but it is plain that they soon 

 harden ; for these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their 

 backs and sides as would easily have fetched blood, had 

 they not been handled with caution. Their spines are 

 quite white at this age ; and they have little hanging ears, 

 which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones. 

 They can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over 

 their faces ; but are not able to contract themselves into 

 a ball as they do, for Ihe sake of defence, when full grown. 

 The reason, I suppose, is, because the curious muscle that 



