HEDGEHOG. 
Ill 
roots. ''The manner," says White, ''in which hedgehogs 
eat the roots of the plantain in my grass walks is very cu- 
rious : with their upper mandible, which is much longer 
than their lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the 
root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In 
this respect they are very serviceable, as they destroy a 
very troublesome weed."* Boy and man this passage 
* The idea that the hedgehog is phytophagous is rapidly losing ground ; the 
following passages from the ' Zoologist ' are applicable here : — "In the course 
of the autunin of 1841, in one of my evening walks, I stumbled over a hedge- 
hog, and on finding, by the sense of feeling — it was too dark to see — what it 
was, I took it up and conveyed it home. I kept it for several weeks, partly with 
a view to ascertain what it would or would not eat. The first kind, of food I 
offered it was raw mutton, and when I offered the meat the animal had been in 
confinement about twenty-two hours; yet, notwithstanding it was in a perfectly 
strange scene, and had fasted only a part of the preceding night — at least T 
presumed so from the hour at which I found it — it took the mutton into a cor- 
ner of the room, and ate it greedily, making, at the same time, a singularly 
harsh sound in the process of eating. I placed apples, pears, potatoes, both 
cooked and uncooked, eggs, beef, mutton, mice, sparrows, &c., in its place, and 
plenty of milk. Neither apple, pear, nor potato was ever touched. The eggs 
were unmanageable by the poor captive, but when I gave them a slight crack, 
their contents were speedily abstracted. The mouse or sparrow was devoured 
at the first convenient opportunity, and at any hour of the day, while the beef 
and mutton always disappeared eventually. The fat was invariably left. So 
much for the food of the hedgehog. As to its habits I have little to say : I 
kept it all through the winter ; its longest nap was for about two, at the most, 
three days. If I set it free in the room, or it made its escape from its box, it 
was very soon to be found among the ashes under the grate, attracted thither, 
I thought, by the warmth. If placed on a table, it never hesitated about run- 
ning over the edge, rolling itself up in an instant (as noticed by Mr. Jesse, I 
think), and sustaining no harm from its fall. The gamekeeper tells me he 
catches many hedgehogs in his traps, which are invariably baited with flesh 
(Zool. 716), and generally that of the rabbit ; and when defending the poor 
hedgehog one day, on the score of its harmlessness in respect of the game, he 
replied by saying he thought it very curious they should show such a strong 
penchant for rabbit meat, if really averse or indifferent to a game diet ; and he 
feared that a tender young leveret in its seat would prove quite as tempt- 
ing as half a young rabbit suspended over a trap. His reasoning was 
