THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN 47 



Northern forms hibernate, but not those inhabiting southern 

 regions, such as India. 



The most nearly allied genus is Hemiechinus, instituted by 

 Fitzinger for hedgehogs having the ridges of the spines 

 tubercled, and recently revived by Satunin {Ann. du Mus. 

 Zool. de I'Acad. Imper. Set., St Petersburg, xi., 1906, published 

 1907), to include auritus, albulus, and other long-eared forms. 



THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN. 



ERIN A CEUS EUROP^US, Linnaeus. 



1666. Herinaceus &= Erinaceus, an Urchin or Hedgehog, Christopher Merrett, Pinax, 

 167. 



1758. Erinaceus europaus, Carolus Linnaus, Systema Natures, x., 52 ; xii., 75, 

 1766 ; and all British authors, except as below ; described from Wamlingbo, South 

 Gottland Island, Sweden; see Thomas, Proc. Zool. Soc. (London), 191 1, 142, 

 published March 191 1. 



1803. Erinaceus suillus, Etienne Geoffroy, Catal. Mamm. du Mus. if Hist. Nat, 67 ; 

 described from France. 



1803. Erinaceus caninus, Auct. et op. cit., 68 ; described from France. 



1900. Erinaceus europaus occidentalis, G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, Ann. and Mag. 

 Nat. Hist., April igoo, 362-363, and Ann. Scott. Nat Hist., January 1901, 3 ; 

 described from Innerwick, Haddingtonshire, Scotland (type specimen in British 

 Museum of Natural History). 



Le Herisson of the French : der Igel of the Germans. 



Terminology: — The ordinary name of this animal, of which there 

 are innumerable corruptions, is of a quite obviously English origin, 

 though it does not appear before 1450. It occurs in a famous 

 passage of Shakespeare : — " Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen " {Mid- 

 summer Nighfs Dream, II. iii. 10; see also Tempest, II. ii. 10, quoted 

 below on p. 58, and (metaphorically) in Richard III., I. ii. 104). On 

 the other hand, it appears in the form Jtedgepig in Macbeth, IV. i. 2, 

 in a passage quoted below on p. 74; and as urchin in Titus Andronicus, 

 II. iii. loi : — " Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins." 



But the old English name was none of these, the Anglo-Saxon 

 form being ll, a contraction of igel (compare the modern German 

 igel, a hedgehog). 



Urchin is derived from Old North French {i.e., Norman or non- 

 Parisian French) herichun, a form which appears as hurchin or hyrchoune 

 in Scotland, as in' Barbour (Early English Text Society, edited by 

 Skeat, xii., line 353), and has many variants in different counties. The 

 Latin type from which this word is derived was ericionem, a theoretical 



