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KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



faithful witnesses by every road-side. No 

 doubt milk would be an agreeable article of 

 diet to him, should he find it placed in his 

 way ; but the impossibility of his sucking 

 cows, should long ago have put a stop to 

 his persecution on this account by the 

 farmers. Ignorance alone can account for 

 its long continuance. That the hedgehog 

 will eat eggs, and possibly even a young 

 bird occasionally, I do not deny; but the 

 amount of injury committed in this way is 

 very trifling, and far more than compensated 

 for by the innumerable insects consumed by 

 it, as its usual food, for nine-tenths of its 

 time. If the stomach be examined, it will 

 generally be found fdled with insects, snails, 

 frogs, some succulent roots, and other vege- 

 table substances. In addition to these 

 articles of food, Dr. Buckland has stated that 

 it destroys snakes ; having named these, we 

 have, we believe, named its usual diet for 

 most of its time ; and the great amount of actual 

 good done by it will, we trust, in future be 

 considered at least as an equivalent for any 

 occasional slight and trivial damage it may 

 do, and which, we believe, to be to so small 

 an extent as to be altogether undeserving of 

 notice. Its habits and manners are extremely 

 interesting, and will well repay any one who 

 attempts to investigate them. Articles of 

 food, however, which it will consume in a 

 state of domestication, should not be set 

 down as its natural diet in a wild state. We 

 merely name this as a caution, knowing that 

 mistakes of this kind have been made, to 

 the manifest injury of the little hedgehog. 

 We shall next speak of 



The Mole (Talpa vulgaris). 



This curious and persevering little miner 

 has many enemies to contend against, and 

 has endured a more determined persecution 

 from man than any other creature that we 

 are acquainted with. A more harmless and 

 inoffensive, nay, a more useful little creature, 

 we do not know. All his life, he is going 

 about doing good, often to those who make 

 his destruction their constant endeavor so 

 long as he remains in their inhospitable 

 vicinity. It always grieves us to see a mole- 

 tree ; to see the bodies often of scores of 

 these little fellows hung, as it were, in 

 terrorem, for the benefit, Ave may presume, of 

 their living brethren. The farmer who 

 sanctions this wholesale destruction, little 

 knows that the real object the army of 

 moles, which invaded his land, had in 

 view, was the destruction of a still larger 

 army of the grubs, which are the larvce 

 of various insects. Among these may be 

 specified that of the common cockchafer, 

 a large grub, some two inches long, and 

 proportionally thick, which remains in this 

 state several years, and does, if unmolested, 



serious injury to the crops by preying on 

 the roots. The food of the mole consists of 

 grubs of all kinds, worms and insects, and 

 frequently of slugs. This last item in his 

 dietary I give on the authority of a writer 

 in Loudon) s Magazine, vol. viii., p.. 227, who 

 says, "It has been observed, in Selkirkshire, 

 that where the moles have been nearly ex- 

 tirpated, upon the Duke of Buccleugh's pas- 

 ture farms, slugs have increased to such a 

 degree as to render it probable that they 

 really consume a great proportion of the 

 herbage. On the pasture land of other pro- 

 prietors, where the moles are not destroyed, 

 the slugs are certainly not so numerous, not 

 more so than usual. Now, it is well known, 

 whatever may be the reason, and no other can 

 be thought of, that the grounds upon which 

 the moles are destroyed do not keep so 

 many sheep as formerly when the moles 

 were not destroyed." When the moles have 

 cleared the land of the depredators which 

 infested them, they at once migrate to some 

 other field requiring similar assistance. 

 They never remain in land that is not infested 

 with grubs. For our part, we should hail 

 with delight the advent of moles to any 

 land of ours ; well knowing that our future 

 crops would be largely benefited by the labors 

 of those grub-destroying animals, and that 

 the trifling inconvenience arising from the 

 certainly unsightly mole-hills, is infinitely 

 overbalanced by the positive good effected. 

 These very mole-hills too, if spread on the 

 land, form a good top dressing ; and in wet 

 situations, the runs of the moles assist in 

 draining the ground — so that an indirect 

 benefit is thus also obtained. 

 Our next subject will be 



The Badger (Meles vulgaris). 

 The days of badger-baiting are, we trust, in 

 this country extinct ; but still, the fact of a 

 badger being found is a signal for its destruc- 

 tion by a large number of people. We be- 

 lieve this animal to be a very harmless 

 creature, and should greatly regret the ex- 

 tinction of the only British representative, 

 of its family. Nothing, however, can justify 

 the cruelty which has usually attended the 

 death of this pretty and interesting creature. 

 If the destruction of any animal is neces- 

 sary, let it take place with as little unneces- 

 sary cruelty as possible, and without the 

 moral debasement which is the necessary 

 consequence of making the torture of any of 

 God's creatures a subject of sport. The 

 badger feeds on roots, fruits of various kinds, 

 insects, and the smaller field animals, frogs, 

 and occasionally (for truth must be told), on 

 the eggs and young of game birds. As how- 

 ever it is only in retired places that the 

 badger is found in any numbers, the amount 

 of injury in this way must be very trifling, 

 and we know some game preservers who 



