PROBLEM PETS
We almost added a hedgehog to the house- hold the other day. It was a young one and the children came marching in with it on a coal shovel, but after someone had pointed out a somewhat doubtful resemblance to a rat in the hairy visage of the innocent hedge-pig it was firmly put from us. I used to have hedgehogs and would really have welcomed one in the garden. I should, however, draw the line at problem pets, as a friend was forced to do not long ago when his son wanted to keep a young cormorant. The fish bills would have been heavy and I imagine that a cormorant needs an occasional dip in the sea to keep in condition. A year or two back a reader wrote to me in the course of his search for a young otter which he wanted to give to his son as a pet. I was in- trigued and wondered whether he obtained one and how he solved the food question. Fish sup- plies would surely have been a difficulty, to say nothing of the amenities for keeping an otter in one part of a stream.
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