NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
i/i 
Church, are fully described and illustrated ; suggestions are given for rambles 
through the surrounding country ; and in a pocket at the end of the volume there 
are two maps, one a reproduction of the t-inch ordnance map and the other 
drawn by the author and comprising many years’ industrious toil in tracing the 
old roads, lanes, footpaths, earthworks and other antiquities. Dunstable stands 
on the Chalk, nearly 500 feet above the sea, so that those seeking an inland 
holiday resort with bracing air and abundant sunshine might well do worse than 
take Mr. Smith’s book in hand and try Dunstable. 
Nature-Study : its progress and interpretation. The present position of the move- 
ment, and a descriptive review of the Home Counties Nature-Study Exhibi- 
tion and Conferences, 1903. By Wilfred Mark Webb. Reprinted from The 
Record of Technical and Secondary Education. Agricultural Education 
Committee. Price 6d. 
In this pamphlet our Honorary Librarian is chiefly concerned in describing 
the Exhibition which he organised with such conspicuous success last year. .-\11 
the valuable papers read at the conferences for teachers are given in extenso, 
whilst sixteen plates by such masteis in photography as Mr. Kearton, Mr. R. B. 
Lodge, Mr. Oliver Pike and Mr. Henry Stevens, are alone worth more than the 
price of the whole. 
Guide to the Municipal Museum, Hull. By T. Sheppard, F.G.S., Curator. 
Price id. 
With admirable industry Mr. Sheppard has published no less than nineteen 
penny pamphlets descriptive of the objects under his care, ranging from skeletons 
of Ichthyosaurus and Sibbald’s Rorqual, to local coins, tokens and tobacco-pipes. 
The Museum, founded by the Literary and Philosophical Society, became muni- 
cipal in 1902. P'rom this guide it appears to be mainly local, so that it is to be 
hoped that it may be developed in the educational direction, for which no doubt 
many non-local specimens will be requisite. 
Knowledge and Scientific News for June contains inter alia an article on 
“ Osprey Plumes ” by Mr. W. P. Pycraft, A.L.S., exposing many fallacies as to 
egret farms and imitation or artificial ospreys. 
The Parents' Review for July contains a paper on “ Nature and Nurture,” by 
Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, read at the Edinburgh Conference in May, which is 
practically a protest against the fatalistic view of heredity, and another on “ The 
Educational Value of Observing Nature,” read at the same Conference by Canon 
Rawnsley. 
Received : — Bulletin of the New York Botanical Garden, vol. 3, No. 9 ; 
The American Botanist and Bird-lore for May ; The Plant World, The Victorian 
Naturalist, and Our Animal Friends for June ; Bird Notes and News, The 
Naturalist, The Irish Naturalist, Nature-Study (Lockwood), The Animals' 
Friend, I he Animal World, The Humanitarian, The Estate Magazine, The 
Agricultural Economist and The Commonwealth for July. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
139 . Hedgehogs. — The reason why the hedgehog was generally represented 
with apples stuck on his quills, appears from the following words in Bossewell 
(p. 61) : “ He clymeth upon a vine or apple-tree and biteth off their branches 
and twigges, and when they (the apples) be fallen down he walloweth on them, 
and so they stick on his prickles, and he beareth them unto a hollow tree or some 
other hole.” The early naturalists also said that if when so loaded one of the 
apples happened to drop off he would throw all the others down in anger and 
return to the tree for a new load — Harl. MSS. 353, fob 145. 
I have lately been seeking information about hedgehogs amongst my parish- 
ioners. One confidently asserts that she has mote than once caught a hedgehog 
sucking her cow. Another says he knows they devour strawberries. Another 
complains that they destroy chickens, having found one in the coop, and chickens. 
