152 
NA TURE NOTES. 
AN EXCELLENT POSTER. 
We have received the following admirable handbill, which 
Miss Frances Power Cobbe has prepared and has had distributed 
in the neighbourhood of Barmouth ; — 
izr 
WHEN TO KILL THE HEDGEHOG. 
When you wish your fields and gardens to be overrun with Mice and Voles, 
Then kill the Hedgehog who destroys them ! 
When you wish Snakes and Vipers to crawl about plentifully, 
Then kill the Hedgehog who kills them and eats their eggs ! 
When you particularly desire that Caterpillars, Grubs, Wire-worms, 
Beetles and Slugs should increase and multiply, and eat up every 
green thing. 
Then kill the Hedgehog, whose food they are, and who is 
the principal INSEGTI\/0R0US creature in this country, 
placed here by Nature to keep the balance. 
When you are so great a donkey as to believe the silly old story (which 
was laughed at a hundred years ago by Pennant as a Welsh super- 
stition) that this creature — with its small pretty mouth, not wide 
enough for a baby to poke in the tip of its little finger— is able to suck 
the big teats of the cows and draw the milk. 
Then by all means go out valiantly, like brave men and boys, 
armed with sticks and stones, against this poor little, 
harmless and useful beast, and pound and kick and 
trample it to death. That will be about Just as wise 
as it is humane and merciful ! 
If you happen, on the contrary, to wish that the numbers of mischievous 
Mice, Voles, Vipers, Caterpillars, Wire-worms, Beetles, Slugs and 
Snails be kept down, and if you are not quite such an idiot as to 
believe the rubbish about the Hedgehogs milking the cows (when you 
can see with your own eyes that it is impossible for them to do any- 
thing of the kind)— then— pray, 
DON’T KILL THE HEDGEHOG! 
Did you ever observe that people who don’t milk properly, and those 
who steal the milk, are very fond of talking about the DRAENOG, 
and how she certainly must have sucked the cows last night ? 
