The Hedgehog's Sleep It was almost dusk, but as we
swerved to avoid the small round object on the road I saw it was a hedgehog. It was not moving, for it had been slow in getting across, and some earlier traveller had made a casualty of it. At this time of year one occasionally sees a hedgehog among the dead leaves in a dry ditch or in a hollow in a wood, but the frosts are a warning of bleak days ahead, and the hedgehogs are seen less and less as the temperature falls. As with the squirrel, hibernation is not complete, and a few mild days in December or January can bring hedgehogs out. When the winter is unusually mild, they can be seen often, for the torpor that is called hibernation is controlled by the severity of the season. The rising temperature thaws the land and brings out the food of the hedgehog, and the scheme of things is such that, when food is not there and the north-east wind blows, the hedgehog is asleep like the ground that shelters it.
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