66 ERINACEID^— ERINACEUS 



flesh upon his spears, Hke an honourable banner won from his 

 adversary in the field." 



Before leaving this question it may be well to direct atten- 

 tion to the Urchin's apparent immunity to snake poison.^ But 

 it is in other respects also abnormal, being in my experience 

 difficult to drown, and it has the reputation of being proof 

 against many poisons. 



Hedgehogs are dirty feeders, writes Alston,^ whose account of 

 the animal is very lively. Like other carnivores, they soil their 

 food and carry parts of it that they cannot eat to their sleeping 

 places, where they are content to repose on a mass of putrify- 

 ing meat. They lap milk like a dog, but bite sideways in pig- 

 like fashion. The contents of eggs are licked out through a hole 

 in the shell, which is kept constantly enlarged as the require- 

 ments of the banquet demand. Portions of the shell may be 

 swallowed, but are not digested. Unlike the weasels, which seize 

 their prey by the back of the head, hedgehogs, like moles, 

 shrews, and rats, attack the abdomen, in order to devour first 

 of all the entrails ; if necessary they eat their way into the 

 still-living victim, turning the skin neatly inside out as they 

 proceed. They will crunch the bones of so comparatively large 

 an animal as a mole, but, at least in captivity, seem to be 

 unable to cut the tough skin with their teeth.' Alston stated 

 that in eating they smack the lips loudly, and undoubtedly 

 they make what Atkinson called "a singularly harsh sound" 

 over their meals. But this, as Mr Cocks writes me, is probably 

 due to " staccato " chopping movements of the teeth. 



The smaller victims are chewed with cruel deliberation. 

 Leonard Jenyns * has well described how a worm was seized by 

 one extremity and gradually eaten to the other, and Mr Harting's 

 specimens tore frogs limb from limb.^ There is some difference 

 of opinion as to the treatment meted out to snails. Mr H. L. 

 Orr ® writes, for instance, that they are separated from their shells 

 before being swallowed, whereas Mr Moffat declares that they 

 are crunched up, shells and all. The latter adds that he has seen 



' See G. Physalix and G. Bertrand, Hevue Scientijique, 8th August 1896, 189. 

 2 Zoologist, i866, 58-60 ; Atkinson's account {op. cit. supra) is also excellent. 

 ^ Fide Adams. * Observations on Natural History, 1846, 61. 



^ Op. cit. 6 jrish Naturalist, 1899, 628. 



