Sleepy Victims
When the various creatures emerge from their long winter sleep they seem sometimes to be only half awake. I watched, for example, a newly awakened hedgehog, a very large one, which moved at about the average pace of a slug and seemed to be quite unaware of my presence, even when I very gingerly touched its spines. A little later I read some account—I think in the Field—of a record of animals killed bycars on a particular stretch of road; and hedgehogs were the most numerous victims. In some places frogs and toads are killed in great numbers ; but this is due to the concentration of their desire to reach water.- They taker a bee-line regardless even of obstructions which might be evaded by the smallest detour. All young birds are victims, and among elders, robins and sparrows perhaps have the least road sense.
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