THE HEDGEHOG. 
ORDER II.— RESTED. 
( Ferae Insectivorce.) 
The Hedgehog, Erinaceus Europceus, Linn., 
Is found in suitable localities throughout Ireland. 
With respect to the carnivorous propensities of the hedgehog, the 
following note Was communicated, by Mr. R. Davis, jun., to The Zoologist 
for 1846 (p. 1293) : — 
“ Some years ago I had three or four hedgehogs which I kept in a garden, of 
which they had the range ; in the same garden I also had several rabbits. After 
they had been together for some days, I found that a rabbit was killed every night, 
the remains of the skin and the bones only being left. This I supposed to be 
done by my neighbours’ cats, and prepared to wage war on them accordingly ; 
but, to my surprise, on peeping into the garden one morning, I saw a hedgehog 
busy at work, with his nose buried in the fresh-cut throat of an expiring rabbit : 
and, from further observations, I had no doubt that the hedgehog had been guilty 
of all the murders. All the hedgehogs I have had seemed to become “ pos- 
sessed,” and died in that state ; each one, about three days before its death, was 
seized with apparent insanity, and continued to run backwards and forwards in 
a semicircular path it had beaten in the grass before its house from morning 
till night, and probably in the night too ; they appeared to run as if for life, and 
evidently ran the life out of themselves, as, after about three days of it, they be- 
came exhausted and died, though previously they had appeared to be in excel- 
lent health.” 
A writer on the hedgehog, in The Gardener s’ Chronicle of 18th July, 
1846 (p. 480), states that, attracted by the cries of a leveret, he hastened 
to the spot, and found it struggling to release itself from the jaws of a 
hedgehog. Another correspondent to the same number of that periodical 
mentions the circumstance of one of these animals killing and eating five 
young chickens in the course of a night. Minute particulars are given 
in both instances. 
An article, contributed by Dr. R. Ball, to The Irish Penny Journal 
(1840-41), contains a very full account of the habits and peculiarities of 
the hedgehog. One of these animals, kept in confinement by that gen- 
tleman, partook of a great variety of food, including “ bread and milk, 
earth-worms, frogs, mice, sparrows, and various other animal matters.” 
Another captive of the same species was supplied by Dr. Ball with 
whiskey mixed with sugar, in expectation that this regimen would have 
the effect of taming the animal : — 
“ The spirit soon showed its power, and, like other beasts that indulge in it, 
he was anything but himself ; and his lack-lustre leaden eye was rendered still 
less pleasing by its inane, drunken expression. He staggered towards us in a 
ridiculous get-out-of-my-way sort of manner ; however, he had not gone far be- 
fore his potation produced all its effects — he tottered, then fell on his side ; he 
was drunk in the full sense of the word ; he could not even hold by the ground. 
We could then pull him about, open his mouth, twitch his whiskers, &c. ; he 
was unresisting. There was a strange expression in his face of that self-con- 
fidence which we see in cowards when inspired by drinking. We put him away, 
and some twelve hours afterwards found him running about, and, as was pre- 
dicted, quite tame, his spines lying so smoothly and regularly that he could be 
stroked down the back and handled freely. We turned him into the kitchen to 
kill the cockroaches, and know nothing further of him.” 
