126 THE HEDGEHOG 



ploughed into something like its present contours 

 before it could be restocJced. The hardy little hedge- 

 hog must have been among the earliest mammalian 

 colonists, and now occupies a territory extending from 

 the Mediterranean seaboard to the Norwegian dales; 

 though, like Julius Agricola and Edward i., it has not 

 yet accomplished the conquest of the Scottish High- 

 lands. It is spreading there, however, having lately been 

 reported as a newcomer in Argyll. In 1892 Mr. Harvie 

 Brown wrote : ' As far as we know, the hedgehog is not 

 as yet found in a wild state in Sutherland, although 

 it has been introduced on several occasions.'^ It is 

 difficult to account for its presence in Ireland otherwise 

 than by human agency. 



At first sight one would scarcely pronounce the 

 hedgehog to be well equipped in the struggle for life. 

 In locomotion it can take rank only as a crawler; 

 flight from pursuit is out of the question ; the animal's 

 only resource in the presence of danger is passive 

 resistance. Curling itself into a ball, it offers its spiny 

 superficies to all comers. Yet, considering how many 

 and majestic are the forms of life which have vanished 

 or become greatly modified with cosmical changes, the 

 persistence of the humble hedgehog in its primitive 

 shape from a period long — very long — anterior to the 

 era of man, must be accepted as proof of the practical 

 excellence of such an unpromising design. Moreover, 

 that the race manages to hold its own in our island 

 without any sensible diminution in numbers, is the 

 more remarkable because of its relentless persecution 



' Fauna of the Moray Basin, i, 155. 



