716 Quadrupeds. 



" The facts stated by your correspondent, ' Laddie,' leave, I fear, 

 but little grounds to enable the poor hedgehog to disprove the charge 

 brought against him, of consuming the eggs of game as food ; but let 

 me offer a possible excuse before the unwilling but almost inevitable 

 guilty conclusion is drawn against the hedgehog. Laddie says he 

 caught several urchins, and when in a state of confinement (as I un- 

 derstand him), gave them ' fish, flesh and fowl, and yet they eat the 

 eggs given them in preference.' Strong evidence this, but not quite 

 conclusive, for in my former notice on this subject, I stated that the 

 hedgehog there mentioned to have been put in a hutch, with the five 

 young rabbits, speedily killed them all, though the keeper could not 

 say whether the hedgehog attempted to eat them afterwards. This 

 destruction of the rabbits might therefore still be contrary to the' 

 hedgehog's usual habits, if at liberty. Now the experiment tried by 

 Laddie (no doubt with the most fair intention of getting at the truth), 

 I think hardly comes up to that intention, for if his words, ' fish, flesh 

 and fowl,' are to be taken literally, the first and third kinds of food 

 are out of the question, and i flesh ' might not have suited the hedge- 

 hog much better than the other two, so that out of a choice of evils 

 the urchin took to eggs, as well as sometimes to the other unusual 

 kinds of food offered it. But to try the matter quite fairly, I think 

 the hedgehog should be turned out in a yard or walled garden, and 

 well supplied with beetles, and other its natural food, and if he takes 

 to devour the eggs which are placed to try him, — then like the con- 

 demning judge's last words, I can only say, Keeper, i have mercy on 

 him,' 'tis his only offence, and the world is wide enough for him and 

 thee." 



In Mr. Waterton's second series of 6 Essays on Natural History,' 

 lately published, he takes the same view as the one suggested by me 

 as to the change which takes place in the habits of an animal when 

 kept in confinement, (see his observations in reply to Mr. Wighton's 

 statement of his squirrel sometimes feeding on birds), which appears 

 to quite bear out the suggestion T had previously ventured to make, as 

 to the hedgehog, when kept in confinement, feeding upon food not its 

 usual sustenance, as stated by Laddie. And here, perhaps, I may be 

 excused for making the following quotation from Mr. Waterton's 

 amusing work. " I wish we knew more than we do of the carnivorous 

 propensities, or the want of them, in certain animals, we might then 

 be able to account tolerably well for many strange occurrences which 

 every now and then puzzle us so much in the workings of <Zbologi- 



