SERPF.NTS THE. PREY of IlErmEnocs.—Professor Dockland, of the Univer- sity
of Oxford, " accidentally came to the knowledge of certain circumstances which led him to suspect that hedgehogs preyed, occasionally at least, on snakes. In order to be satisfied of the truth of his conjecture, he placed the common- ringed snake (culubur natrix) and a hedgehog iu a box together. The latter had been bred in an undomesticated state for some time in the Botanical Garden at Oxford, where there was no probability of its having been able to see snakes. At first the hedgehog, being rolled up, did not see the snake ; when the Pro- fessor laid the former on the body of the latter, and in such a way as that the snake was in contact with that part of the ball where the head and tail met. As soon as the snake began to move, the hedgehog started, and opening himself up, gave the snake a vigorous bite, and instantly resumed his rolled state. It speedily repeated the bite, and followed it up at the same interval as before with a third bite, by which the hack of the snake was broken. The hedgehog, then standing by the snake's side, took up and passed through its jaws the whole body of the snake, cracking the bones audibly at every inch. This preparatory process being completed, the hedgehog commenced eating the serpent, beginning at the tip of the tail, and proceeding without iaterruption, though slowly, con- sumed it,just as one eats a radish, until about half the victim disappeared. The hedgehog could not go further, from mere repletion ; but it finished the rest of the serpent on the following evening."—.Notes to Benderson's Gorier.
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