386 
NOTES to THE 
the hedgehog was munching up the attacking viper's tail. 
The hedgehog did not suffer in the least ; on the contrary, he 
ate lip the viper in the course of the night leaving not a trace 
of him. Pigs are said to be poison-proof against rattle -snakes' 
bites. — Mr. Groom Napier tells me that in America he has 
frequently seen a boar seize a lively rattlesnake, which it con- 
tinued to devour, little heeding its furious bites, for which the 
boar was not afterwards the worse. 
Mr. Davy has had forty hedgehogs at a time ; he used to sell 
them wholesale from 85. to 12.9. per dozen ; he sold them chiefly 
to shopkeepers to sell again. Hedgehogs are very useful in 
kitchens, bakehouses, and gardens for destroying all kinds of in- 
sects, especially blackbeetles ; they root in the ground for insects 
and beetles. He has never known hedgehogs to eat any kind of 
raw vegetable ; they are very fond of bread and milk ; he feeds 
them chiefly on " fat-gut " and offal ; they will eat a fresh-killed 
mouse with avidity, and he believes they take a number of young 
larks from the nests on the ground. Hedgehogs do a great deal 
of good on ploughed cultivated land by destroying grubs and 
other insect pests of the farm. In the natural state they lie 
torpid in the winter for about four months out of the twelve. 
They cover themselves with leaves, grass, &c., sometimes three 
or four feet deep. The hedgehog did not grub about the roots 
of White's plantains for the sake of eating the roots, but for the 
insects and grubs at the root of the plants. He would not go 
deep enough for " pincher bobs," which are the larvae of the stag 
beetles. Pincher bobs are three years in the larval state. 
TiELDFAKES, p. 98. — The batfolders about London take numbers 
of fieldfares, red-w^ngs^ and hen blackbirds, which, as a rule, are 
killed for eating, there being no sale for them as cage-birds. The 
cock blackbirds are kept alive and sold for songsters. Davy has 
never known either of these birds taken by a trammel net on 
the ground by a lark-catcher, as mentioned by White. White 
does not state this as a fact, but only as an anecdote. 
If there had not been suitable hollies or trees the birds might 
by chance take " their lodgings on the cold ground ;" as a rule, 
fieldfares and redwings are shy. After they have been pressed 
for animal food and driven to the berries by the snow, in a few^ 
days they become very poor and emaciated, and not worth 
powder and shot. 
Fieldfares first arrive in large flocks in October with the red- 
wing and missel-thrush. They feed on the mountain ash and 
any kind of berry food. 
