4010 Quadrupeds. 



his many good deeds be forgotten. Surely, it would be hard to con- 

 demn his race, and take from him his good name, because he has been 

 known to have satisfied his hunger with forbidden food ! Why, at 

 this rate, what living creature can escape ? Certainly not man, who 

 from the days of Adam has transgressed through greediness ; and 

 there is scarcely a species of beast, bird, fish, reptile or insect, but 

 has occasionally been guilty of atrocious cruelty, amounting sometimes 

 to murder, and sometimes even to cannibalism, and all the effect of 

 ungovernable hunger. 



I own that the hedgehog is a great favourite with me. As a boy, I 

 have on several occasions carried one home from the woods, and con- 

 fined him in a rabbit-hutch for a time, where he would soon lose his 

 natural timidity, and come out of his dark corner to be fed : and I 

 now have a family group of old and young, stuffed, and forming a very 

 pretty case. I know no animal which always gave me a greater idea 

 of innocence than the much maligned and persecuted little hedgehog. 

 To see him come trotting down the path in a summer evening's ram- 

 ble through the silent woods, to stand aside and watch him, ignorant 

 of your presence, smelling, and snuffing, and poking his nose among 

 the leaves and grass, and jogging on in his quiet way; and then to 

 call to mind the absurd tales of his cow-sucking propensities, still 

 firmly believed by most of our labourers, and his persecution conse- 

 quent thereon, is surely enough to excite compassion in his accusers, 

 and pity, " near akin to love." And then, if you suddenly make him 

 aware of your presence, his only defence is to retire within himself: 

 he has no notion of doing battle in self-defence ; he knows he cannot 

 escape by flight ; so he rolls himself into a ball and awaits the result. 

 It is said that even the worm when trodden on will turn on the aggres- 

 sor, but not so the hedgehog ; he meets the heavy blow, the deadly 

 kick, the murderous attack of his cruel persecutors, with an enduring 

 patience and silent resignation enough to cause remorse in the breast 

 of his foe. 



Respecting this curious habit of rolling himself up into a ball, and pre- 

 senting on all sides a bristling array of spines, Pliny tells us that hence 

 he derives his Latin name " Echinus": — " Nomen habet ano rou e%£<v 

 ecunov, quod convolutus ita se condat et contineat, ut nullae carnes ap- 

 pareant ; vel ano too /xh duva<r6at exeo-Qau, quod teneri minime possit ob 

 aculeos, quibus totus inhorrescit et contegitur : unde echinum voca- 

 runt spinosum castaneae operculum." — Plin. lib. 27, cap. 9. 



But to return once more to his defence. Surely, when we consider his 

 retiring disposition, for he is essentially a crepuscular animal, seldom 



