110 
HEDGEHOG. 
crisp, frosty day in January [Letter dated 17th January, 
1835], poked his nose into a deserted rabhit-hole in 
this said bank at Eshing bridge. After a while, I 
heard from the bowels of the earth a yelping that plainly 
announced the discovery of some phenomenon in Natu- 
ral History. The hole was very large, and the end was 
filled with leaves ; after trying a good many contrivances 
that did not answer, I hit on one that did, and I hauled 
up a lump of dried leaves about as big as my head ; out- 
side, the leaves were loose, further in, close and tight, and 
after taking off layer upon layer, I felt some sharp in- 
strument run into my hand, and I knew for certain that I 
had in my hand what I had often longed for, a somnolent 
hedgehog. I took him home, woke him up witli a gentle 
warmth, and had the intense satisfaction of seeing him 
wander about a Brussels carpet, with his leafy great coat 
on his back, making him look for all the world Uke some 
new species of Armadillo. When he had satisfied my cu- 
riosity, I had a sackful of dry leaves shot down in a corner 
of the cellar, and in these I let piggy take out the rest of 
his nap, of which, as it afterwards appeared, a term of 
forty-one days was then unexpired. 
Begging pardon of naturalists for such an accusation, I 
can't help saying that I think a great many fibs have been 
told about the hedgehog. In the first place the old wife's 
fables about sucking cows and so forth, were so horridly 
unbelievable, and yet so damaging to little hoggy's repu- 
tation with the vulgar, that the more erudite and more 
humane became his patrons and apologists, and made 
much more of him than he deserves. 
Dear old White of Selborne must have been taking a 
nap when he told us about boggy 's liking for plantain- 
