THE HEDGEHOG
In his walled garden Uncle Paul allowed a couple of hedgehogs, which he
had brought from the neighboring hills, to wander at large. One evening
the children noticed them poking about in a lettuce patch.
“Why,” asked Emile, “has Uncle Paul put those animals in the garden and
told us to leave them alone if we happened to come across them?”
“No doubt to make war on harmful insects,” answered Louis. “Stop, look
there! One of them is turning up the earth with its little black snout.
Ssh! Let’s keep still and see what it’s after.”
The children crouched down behind a row of peas so as not to be seen.
The hedgehog, now scratching with its paws, now rummaging with the tip
of its snout, which resembles that of a pig, finally unearthed a big,
fat white larva which had probably been clinging to the root of a
lettuce plant. The children ran to look at the captured game. The
hedgehog, thus taken by surprise, hastened to roll itself up into a
ball bristling with spines. In the disinterred worm Jules easily
recognized a June-bug larva, one of that ravenous and destructive race
that Uncle Paul had already told them about. [1]
In the evening, when they were all gathered together, the hedgehog
naturally became the subject of conversation.
“Several years ago,” said Uncle Paul, “as I was returning home one
evening at a late hour, I chanced upon two hedgehogs coming out from a
pile of stones. I tied them up in my handkerchief so as to bring them
home and let them loose in my garden. Ever since then they have never
failed to render me certain services that you can appreciate by
examining the jaws in this picture.”
“Pointed teeth like those,” Jules remarked, “were never made for
browsing grass. The hedgehog must feed on prey. Its teeth are just
right for crunching June-bug worms such as I saw dug up in the garden
this morning.”
“Notice how sharp the points of the teeth are,” resumed his uncle,
“both in the upper and in the lower jaw. Those two rows of teeth fit
into each other when the animal bites, and they plunge like so many
fine daggers into the captured victim’s flesh. With this complicated
dental mechanism evidently the hedgehog cannot triturate tough food; it
must have a kind of diet that is soft, juicy, capable of being reduced
to marmalade by a brief chewing. The animal is therefore preëminently a
flesh-eater. Several other species, particularly the mole and the
shrew-mouse of these regions, have, like the hedgehog, teeth tapering
to conical points and interplaying in the two jaws. Their food, too, is
about the same as the hedgehog’s. All three—hedgehog, mole, and
shrew-mouse—live on small game—insects, larvæ, slugs, caterpillars,
worms. They belong to the group of mammals known to naturalists as the
order of insectivorous animals, or, in other words, the order of
insect-eaters. On and under the ground they carry on the same kind of
hunt that bats do in the air. In their way of living bats, too, are
insectivorous; but their peculiar bodily structure causes them to be
placed apart in the order of chiropters. Thus the mammals furnish us
two orders of helpers: the chiropters, which hunt on the wing, and the
insect-eaters—the insectivorous animals properly so called—which hunt
on and under the ground. To the latter belong the hedgehog, the mole,
and the shrew-mouse.
“The hedgehog, the largest of the three, requires the largest and most
plentiful prey. Tiny vermin are disdained, but a June-bug larva or a
good fat mole-cricket is an excellent find. When they are not buried
too deep he digs with his paws and snout to unearth them. You have
to-day seen my hedgehogs at work in the lettuce bed. All night they go
prowling about the garden, sniffing and rummaging in every nook and
corner, and crunching no small number of my foes without doing me much
harm. In them I have two vigilant watchmen who make their rounds every
night for the greater security of my growing vegetables. However,
despite the interest I take in them, I must, to be candid, acknowledge
their faults.
“The hedgehog’s natural food consists unquestionably of insects; but
when a good opportunity presents itself the greedy creature is easily
tempted by larger and more highly flavored prey. In its wild state the
hedgehog does not hesitate to suck the blood of young rabbits caught in
their hole during the mother’s absence. The eggs of quail and
partridge, too, it esteems as a most delicious feast, but its supreme
delight is to wring the necks of a brood of little chickens. One night
last year I heard a great commotion in the hen-house. The roosters were
raising cries of alarm, the hens were cackling in desperate fright. I
ran out to see what the trouble was. One of my hedgehogs had crept in
under the door, and I found the rogue regaling himself on some little
chickens almost under their mother’s wing, she being powerless to help
them in the dark. With one kick I sent the assassin rolling outside,
and the next day thorough repairs were taken in hand. The holes on a
level with the floor were closed up, and since then I have had no
further trouble from my insect-hunters. With proper precautions against
their thirst for blood, I have two larva-devourers of great value for
my garden.”
“But won’t they do damage of another kind?” asked Louis. “I have heard
that hedgehogs climb trees and shake off the ripe fruit, and then roll
on it so as to spit it with their spines, after which they carry it off
to their holes and eat it at their ease.”
“Pay no attention to any such stories, my boy. It is utterly impossible
for a hedgehog to climb a tree. Clumsy and stubby as it is, with legs
so short and claws useless for climbing, how could it manage an
athletic feat that calls for agility, hooked claws, and supple limbs?
No, my friend, the hedgehog does not climb trees, neither does it carry
off fruit transfixed with its spines. The only vestige of truth in that
old wives’ tale is that hedgehogs do not live exclusively on prey; if
they find fruit that they like on the ground, a very ripe pear or a
juicy peach, for example, they munch it with as great contentment as
they would a beetle or a June-bug.”
“It is also said,” Louis added, “that if kept in a house the hedgehog
will drive away rats.”
“Ah, that I am quite willing to believe. By day the animal crouches in
a corner and sleeps, but at night it is on the move, always hunting for
slugs, fat beetles, and other insects. Consequently it may well be that
its noisy hunt for prey as it goes poking its pointed snout into every
hole and cranny frightens the rats and mice and drives them away,
especially as the nocturnal prowler exhales a disagreeable odor
calculated to betray its presence. Having neither the cat’s light paw
nor that animal’s great patience in lying in wait for game, the
hedgehog does not indulge in hunting rats; but if by good luck one
falls into its clutches, it is accepted with delight, for the
hedgehog’s great feast is blood, freshly killed flesh. When I wish to
give my two hedgehogs a special treat I throw them a bleeding beef
liver or a chicken’s entrails. Anything of that sort is eagerly
devoured. Tastes so undisguisedly carnivorous tell you what must happen
to a mouse caught by one of these animals. I attribute to them the
disappearance of some nests of rats that used to trouble me.
“To satisfy its devouring hunger the hedgehog appears to attack all
sorts of prey alike, even planting its teeth in a viper without any
thought of the reptile’s venom; and in still other respects the animal
enjoys a remarkable immunity. You have seen the Spanish fly, that
magnificent, strong-smelling insect that lives on ash-trees and is
distinguished by sheath wings of a superb golden green.”
“Yes, I remember it,” said Jules. “It is used for raising blisters
after being dried and ground to powder.”
“That is correct. If, then, this powder eats into the skin so readily,
what effect ought it to have on the delicate lining of the stomach if
introduced into that organ? What animal could swallow it without
suffering torture and speedy death? Well, by an exception that I cannot
undertake to explain the hedgehog can feed on this horrible poison
without the slightest apparent injury. A celebrated Russian naturalist,
Pallas, has seen it make a meal on Spanish flies with no ill results.
For a repast of that sort a stomach peculiarly constructed is certainly
necessary.
“Once upon a time there was a king, very well known in history, named
Mithridates. Being aware that he was surrounded by enemies capable of
poisoning him some day, in order to obviate the danger he gradually
accustomed himself to the most noxious drugs. By increasing the dose
little by little he finally rendered himself immune against poison. The
hedgehog is the Mithridates of the animal kingdom; but how far it
surpasses the suspicious king! Without practice it dares swallow the
poison of the Spanish fly and the viper’s deadly venom.
“I like to believe that the hedgehog has not received these exceptional
gifts only to leave them unused. It must delight to frequent the haunts
of the viper; in its nocturnal rounds in the underbrush it must
occasionally come upon the reptile in its retreat and crush its head
with those pointed teeth that are so well adapted to such work. What
service may it not render in localities infested with this dangerous
breed! And yet man rages at the hedgehog, curses it most heartily, and
treats it as an unclean beast of no use but to arouse the fury of dogs,
which cannot attack it because of its spines. He subjects it to the
torture of an ice-cold bath to make it unroll itself; and if the animal
refuses to do so he prods it with a pointed stick, goads it,
disembowels it.”
“We will never meddle with hedgehogs, Uncle Paul,” Jules assured him.
“We are too much afraid of snakes to drive away this valiant defender.”
“What are the hedgehog’s spines?” asked Emile.
“Hairs, nothing else, but very coarse, and stiff, and pointed like
needles. Together with other hairs, fine, soft, and silky, they cover
all the upper part of the body. The under part has only a coat of soft
hair; otherwise the animal would wound itself in rolling up into a
ball. When the hedgehog scents danger—and it is a very wary beast—it
ducks its head under its stomach, draws in its paws, and rolls itself
into a ball, presenting everywhere an armor of spines to the enemy. The
fox has long been famous for its many ruses; the hedgehog has only one,
but it is always effective. Who would dare grapple with the creature
when it has assumed its attitude of defense? The dog refuses; after a
few luckless essays that make its mouth bleed it declines to go further
and contents itself with barking. Sheltered under the safe cover of its
spines, the hedgehog turns a deaf ear to these futile threats and
remains quiet.
“But if the dog, urged on by its master, returns to the charge, the
hedgehog has recourse to a last expedient of war which rarely fails of
effect: it discharges its strongly offensive urine, which flows from
the inside of the ball and wets the outside. Repelled by the unbearable
odor of the ill-smelling beast and pricked on the nose by its spines,
even the most eager dog now abandons the attack. The enemy gone, the
hedgehog slowly unrolls itself and trots off to some safe retreat.”