THE HEDGEHOG 



Soon after the renewal of activity in the 

 spring, hedgehogs begin to think of family 

 affairs, and the males are said to be very 

 quarrelsome at this time, but somewhat afraid 

 of each other's spines. Two were watched 

 walking round each other, nose to nose, but 

 unable to get a grip, which circling they con- 

 tinued for twenty minutes, when at last 

 ' each had hold of the other by a fore paw, 

 and was shaking it as a terrier does a rat, 

 puffing and blowing with the exertion. Some- 

 times one was uppermost, sometimes the other.' ^ 

 I have never had the luck to see such a battle, 

 and all those that I have kept together in 

 captivity have behaved very well, not being 

 in the least quarrelsome or bad-tempered. 

 Once I put an old female hedgehog in a box 

 with some young ones that had been brought 

 to me from a spot fully a mile away from that 

 where the old one had been found, so she could 

 not have been their mother, yet when in the 

 evening I went quietly up to the box to feed 

 them, I saw that I had indeed a ' happy family,' 

 The old hedgehog was stretched out on her 

 side, and the four young ones were lying in a 

 row sucking away like little pigs at an old sow. 



• R. Service, Ann. Scott. Nat. History, 1901, pp. 232-3. 



231 



