FIERCE JUMPING HEDGEHOGS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIB,—One infers from Mr. Harrison's letter that the savage young hedgehogs he speaks of were out ready for prey in the daytime. This is surely very unusual, the animal being purely nocturnal in his habits, although I must own that I have had an intimate personal acquaintance with but one hedgehog. He suddenly appeared in the little enclosed garden behind this hbuse, having been, We surmised, throWn over the lane wall by some passer-by. He was full grown but evidently young, and we tried hard to tame him, but gentle as he was, he never lost his shyness or gained confidence in us. Sometimes he would take food from our fingers after patient coaxing, and he would often allow his head to be delicately scratched, but it was evident that he endured rather than enjoyed the process. He was not afraid of the cat, nor was Puss much interested in him. After the first shock of mutual surprise was over they ignored each other, and walked the strait ways of the tiny garden in peace under the stars. Macbeth, as we called the hedgehog, was a most voracious beast ; he 'would eat a saucerful of rice pudding or bread and milk, several slices of meat, and 'finish up with any number of slugs or caterpillars. I have seen him devout eleven large green caterpillars in rapid succession. He was not an entirely satisfactory inmate of a garden, however, in spite of his vermin-catching, for he did much damage to such close-growing things as mossy saxifrages, aubrietias, arabis, &c., by digging into their clumps to hunt for slugs or grubs, besides which be made well-defined tracks with his clumsy little feet across beds of choice seed. lings and the like. He spent his days in a little wooden hutch filled with straw and fixed in the most secluded corner of Which our tiny plot- can beast, and here he slept through the one winter we had him. Only twice or thrice did we ever 'cafch glimpse of him in daylight, and then he was driven out apparently by hunger, each daylight appearance following on a prematurely cold. "spell," during which Macbeth bad remained in his house. I am sorry to say. he became sadly lazy towards the end of the year and a half he lived with us. He all but gave up hunting for himself; found but little attrac- tion in caterpillar or slug (or even the remains of the cat's mice, which once he loved), but waddling slowly from his hutch to the door leading into the house when twilight fell, be would. sit patiently there waiting for his supply of cooked food, with which, I fear, be was much too freely provided. He disappeared in the early autumn of 1911, probably through the door into the adjoining lane, which was accidentally left ajar after dark one night, and I do not think his departure was very greatly mourned, for he was anything but an interesting pet, and bad the usual and unpleasant hedgehog attribute of being infested 14 Dussford Place, Bath.
Previous page
