THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN 63 



although often denied by partisan writers, can no longer 

 be glossed over by an impartial historian. The animal has 

 many defenders, but its predilection for eggs, game, and 

 poultry has long stood on record,^ and is supported by the 

 convincing testimony of a host of recent accusers. Details of 

 its exact delinquencies, although some account of its methods 

 of feeding and hunting may be acceptable, would therefore 

 seem to be superfluous. It may be remarked in its favour 

 that its attentions to eggs may in the first instance arise from 

 a love of warmth rather than from malice prepense. An 

 outlying barndoor hen has been found sitting on her uninjured 

 eggs with a hedgehog's prickly body interposed between her 

 and them ! ^ No doubt, however, the first breaking of an egg 

 would give the hedgehog, at first innocent, a guilty knowledge of 

 their nature ; and the presence of the unwelcome intruder in a 

 pheasant's or partridge's nest can be scarcely more conducive 

 to successful hatching than if it destroyed the clutch wilfully 

 and without hesitation.^ 



But, in spite of all that has been said, it is correct to write 

 that its usual aliment consists of beetles, worms, slugs, snails, 

 and various other insects and invertebrates, in search of which 

 it is fond of grubbing in cow-dung. 



Its fondness for insects makes it a useful pet in the 

 basements of houses where such pests abound, and, were it to 

 restrict its operations to the pursuit of such small game, there 

 is no doubt that it might be set down as a creature useful to 

 the farmer and harmless to the game-preserver. In the 

 neighbourhood of big cities, in market-gardens and pasture- 

 lands, its presence may be entirely beneficial. 



But the changed conditions brought about by game, 



1 See, for instance. Rev. J. C. Atkinson, in Zoologist^ 1844, 791 ; several other 

 letters on the same subject in the Zoologist were collected in Letters of Rusticus, 

 1849, 111-115. 



2 M. S. Young, Nature Notes, 1901, 16-17. 



3 Many individuals seem never to have learnt the nature of the contents of 

 large eggs, and in captivity do not know how to reach them until the shell 

 has been broken (see Atkinson, loc. cit. supra). Few, if any, mammals, even if 

 otherwise confirmed egg-eaters, recognise cold fresh eggs as eatable, although they 

 will devour them freely when warm, especially if containing a nearly hatched chick. 

 But the five captive hedgehogs of which R. Drane writes me that, even when hungry, 

 they refused eggs, whole or broken, boiled or fresh, must have surely been exceptional 



