THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN 75 



In some parts of England^ country boys have a way of 

 making the poor brutes scream or wail by drawing a small 

 piece of stick to and fro across one of the hamstrings. Mr Jones, 

 who describes this proceeding,^ thinks that it "really tickles 

 the hedgehog, and makes him laugh in his own peculiar 

 way." 



Another cry, habitually uttered by animals wandering about 

 at night, has been likened by Major Spicer to the voice of 

 a calf, and is probably the same note which an anonymous 

 writer described as a kind of "quack, quack, quack."* It was 

 compared by Witchell * rather to a grunt than a quack, and 

 by other writers to a "quack" or "crake," closely resembling 

 the sound made if the thumb nail be drawn slowly along the 

 larger teeth of an ordinary comb. 



Hedgehogs are easily rendered familiar, and will soon 

 partake without fear of the food of other domestic pets, eating 

 at the same time with them and from the same dish. They do 

 not, however, seem to be long-lived.^ They will allow their 

 faces to be rubbed or keep their bristles smooth to be stroked. 

 They have been harnessed to a small toy cart,® and have learnt 

 the meaning of a dinner whistle, running or gambolling up 

 to the call, but retiring with a different air when satisfied. 

 William Thompson of Belfast ' mentions the fact that they will 

 drink beer to intoxication, and Mr Cocks once tamed a newly 

 caught individual by drenching it with beer as it lay rolled up, 

 and stroking it whenever it uncurled. On recovering sobriety, 

 it remained for the rest of its life perfectly tame. 



Hedgehogs must have been tamed from time immemorial, 

 since Aristotle ^ incidentally mentions that those that are kept 

 in domestication shift from one wall to the other, according to 

 the direction of the wind. 



* As in Essex, ^itfe Laver (z« Hi.). 



2 Op. cit. ^ Field, 26th August 1899, 294. 



* Field, 2nd September 1899, 4°°- 



^ Captain W. Buckley, however, informed Forrest that he believes they reach 

 an age of at least twenty years. 



" M. J. Simpson, Irish Naturalist, 1895, 136. 



' Quoting from R. Ball, in The Irish Penny Journal, 1840-41. 



* Historia Animalium, ed. cit, 'vs.., 6, 612'. 



