3o FARM VERMIN, HELPFUL AND HURTFUL, 



hedgehog will destroy not only the eggs of ground-breeding 

 wild birds, but also those of domestic poultry.* By many 

 gamekeepers it is accordingly considered as vermin but 

 the occasions when the farmer will suffer from raids upon his 

 henroosts will probably be few and far between. Isolated 

 instances of a hedgehog attacking other things, a leveret 

 and a young rook fallen from the nest, for instance, are on 

 record ; but a more serious impeachment (ancient as to its 

 origin and widely believed in) of sucking a cow during the 

 night has, although laughed at by some modern writers, 

 been revived of late years from an undoubted case of a 

 hedgehog gnawing the udder of a sheep which was thrown " 

 in a ditch. 



The hedgehog is never likely to become sufficiently 

 numerous to constitute a pest," and systematic trapping 

 need never be resorted to. In the case of a particular 

 individual paying repeated and objectionable visits, two or 

 three ordinary gins set about the place will generally be 

 the means of securing the intruder. The traps should, of 

 course, be attached by cord to a peg driven into the ground 

 or to some fixed object. 



Upon one occasion, finding that the eggs were disappearing from the nest of a wild 

 pheasant sitting in the woods, I set a gin to catch the depredator — baiting it with an egg. 

 Next morning I found a hedgehog in the trap. Upon another occasion a hedgehog, which 

 had been introduced into a vegetable garden as a friendly helper, killed nine chickens 

 in a night. In the morning it was found comfortably curled up among its victims. 

 Yet another instance of its penchant for flesh. When a schoolboy I, upon one 

 •occasion, placed a hedgehog and a stock-dove in the same box overnight. In the morning 

 only the hedgehog was there, and " traces "—a parallel incident to that of " The Lady and 

 the Tiger.' —Editor. 



