384 
NOTES TO THE 
and back, and had bright eyes partially open. Yet they seemed 
quite helpless under the manipulations of the cuckoo, which 
looked a much less developed creature. The cuckoo's legs, how- 
ever, seemed very muscular, and it appeared to feel about with 
its wings, which were absolutely featherless, as with hands, the 
' spurious wings ' (unusually large in proportion) looking like a 
spread-out thumb. The most singular thing of all was the direct 
purpose with which the blind little monster made for the open 
side of the nest, the only part where it could throw its burthen 
down the bank.' " 
I was informed by a fellow-passenger in the train when going 
to Selborne, " tliat cuckoos eat other birds' eggs." My informant 
said he knew it for a certainty. It is extraordinary that such 
ignorance can still exist, especially in the neighbourhood of 
Selborne. 
Mr. King, of Wiggenhall, Watford, tells me that a young 
lady counted the call of the cuckoo one fine morning about 
4 A.M. ; the first time, the bird cried " cuckoo " eighty times, 
the second time, he cried no less than one hundred and thirty 
times without intermission. 
Hedgehog, p. 97. — In the bristles of the common hedgehog we 
find a very curious bit of mechanism. The hedgehog has no horny 
studs, either fastened into the skin, as in the armadillo (see 
p. 419), nor yet has he a bone-formed dome, covered with horny 
scales, as in the tortoise (see p. 420). Instead of this his horny 
covering assumes the form of spines, or bristles, each set firmly 
into the skin at one end, and very sharply pointed at the other 
end. These bristles the owner can erect in groups, with all the 
points outwards, presenting a most formidable array of weapons ; 
but the hedgehog has also y^ower to lay back all these sharp- 
pointed spines in one direction, viz., from his head backwards. 
In this position they form a carpet, which if smoothed the right 
way with the hand is as soft as velvet. In order to find out 
how all this mechanism was carried out, I have dissected a 
hedgehog, and was surprised to find how very slight are the 
muscles which command the spine. They are fine strings of 
fibres, very similar to the Corugator supercilii, or frowning 
muscle in our own forehead; in fact, when a hedgehog curls 
himself up, he begins work with a tremendous frown as he 
tucks his head inwards. The muscles that work the spines are 
attached to prominences which project from the backbone, and 
especially do they spring from the ribs, which I find to be of 
unusual strength and abnormal width for so small an animal. 
The vertebrae are attached to the ribs in a very peculiar manner, 
