6056 



Quadrupeds. 



the remaining one was baking in the sun in the centre of a broad 

 gravel-path, which lay between the nest and the hole under the fence, 

 the mother having evidently managed to carry off three, but^ disturbed 

 in her journey vrith the last, probably daylight overtaking her before 

 she calculated. I returned it to its nest or hiding-place to see the 

 result. 



July 14. The remaining young one is gone, no doubt carried off 

 by the old hedgehog. 



The sequel is soon told : some few days afterwards my neighbour, 

 a farmer, told me, as a remarkable circumstance, that a few mornings 

 before, he and one of his men, about five o'clock, saw a large hedge- 

 hog, in his meadow adjoining mine, carrying a young one in its mouth 

 from the direction of my garden. Between my meadow, which ad- 

 joined the garden and his, was a high bank and ditch, which she had 

 therefore passed, and altogether she was, when seen by him, 100 yards 

 from the garden fence : this was no doubt my hedgehog, in whom 

 I had at last taken quite an interest : they watched her for some time, 

 carrying the young one a " smartish way," as they called it, through 

 the thick grass heavy with dew; every now and then she put the 

 young one down and rested, and this she did many times, setting to 

 work again at her task, and so interested was she in what she was 

 doing that she took no notice of them, though close to her. She 

 carried the young one in her mouth, having hold of it by the back of 

 the neck, and her strength was such that she lifted it usually quite off 

 the ground, and trotted rather than walked with it. I am sorry to say 

 they ended by destroying them both. 



This poor hedgehog had each night to feed herself, travel from her 

 own hiding-place to her young, suckle them all, and lastly to transport 

 them singly away to a place of safety ; thus making three or four 

 long journeys on the night she took them away, the nights being 

 very short at this season of the year. 



This is the amiable part of their character ; but I must, from long 

 experience of their habits, give but a very indifferent account of them 

 as friends to the game preserver, though it was long before I would 

 yield to the popular clamour against them. While on the subject of 

 this hedgehog and her young ones, I will mention that, late on the 

 evening that I had strewed the pieces of raw meat for her in the path- 

 way, 1 found a large black slug feasting on a piece of raw mutton: 

 there was no mistake about it, as I watched him for some time, and he 

 . *k to it like a leech ; I had no notion that these gentlemen were 



