TEE HEDGDEOG. 



was enabled to ■yatoh tmobserTed, and wluot afforded me an 

 opportunity of seeing a little into their habits and mode of 

 feeding. It was creeping Tip and down a grass walkk appa- 

 rently in. busy search for worms. It carried its snout very 

 low, insinuating it among the roots of the herbage, and sniffing 

 under the dead leaves which lay about. After a time it 

 commenced scratching at a particular spot to which it seemed 

 directed by the scent, and drew out a very large worm from 

 just beneath the surface of the ground. This it immediately 

 began to devour, taking it into the mouth by one extremity, 

 and gradually eating its way to the other — an operation which 

 lasted some time, and was attended by an incessant action of 

 the teeth, which grated upon each other with a peculiar noise. 

 After the worm was all gone, as I thought, I was surprised to 

 see the whole put out of the mouth again, and from the ap- 

 pearance of the earth I was led to believe that it had only been 

 subjected to the action of the teeth for the purpose of being 

 bruised, and squeezing out the soft internal parts of the body, 

 which alone were eaten in the first instajice. The skin itself, 

 however, was shortly retaken into the mouth, and the whole 

 clean devoured. From the above observation, it is probable 

 worms form no inconsiderable part of the food of the he(%ehog, 

 and that they are enabled to detect them by the smell and to 

 extract them from the ground with their snout, after the same 

 manner that the hog uses his in searching for buried food. In 

 the instance observed by me no attempt was made to kill the 

 worm before eating it, but that part of the poor creature that 

 was still out of the mouth of the hedgehog kept up a continued 

 writhing as the nibbling of its other extremity proceeded." 



Clumsy as it appears, it somehow manages to capture such 

 swift creatures as the hare and rabbit. Some time ago, in 

 Cumberland, a hedgehog was caught in the act of killing a 

 hare, on which it had inflicted such injuries that it died shortly 

 after it was rescued. The insect tribe, however, form the 

 staple of its food. It is very partial to bees, and, thanks to 

 its impenetrable armour, it is not afraid of the sharp stings of 

 the outraged honeymaker. With its spiky hide covered with 

 indignant and furious bees, the hedgehog, having effected bur- 

 glarious entry into a nest, calmly munches away at the grubs 

 and the honey, and then trots off unscathed as little in body 

 as in conscience. 



The stomach of the hedgehog would seem to be invulnerable 

 to poison. Corrosive sublimate it devours with a relish, and 



