OUR HEDGEHOGS.
Who among us has not been amused and delighted by Frank Buckland’s most original accounts of the various animals, wild and tame, with which, at different periods of his career, he came in contact? Reading in his Life the account of the hedgehog imported into the Deanery in the fond hope that it would devour the black beetles, has reminded us of some of our own experiences in connection with those animals. We were troubled with black beetles in our kitchen regions, and were informed that hedgehogs would eat them. It was long before the Life of Frank Buckland appeared; we had not the benefit of his experience, or we might have known that, as he says, ‘they don’t act. A hedgehog cannot possibly hold more than a pint of beetles at a time, and in my kitchen there are gallons of them.’
When the first hedgehog arrived and was turned loose in the kitchen, we expected great things of it; but, to our surprise, the creature would not take the trouble to catch the beetles. They might swarm on every side, ‘beetles to right of him, beetles to left of him;’ they might run right before his eyes—he only regarded them with placid indifference. He may have performed prodigies of beetle-catching in the middle of the night when no one saw him; but so far as our observation went, the only way in which he could be induced to eat any was when they were caught for him—taken up in the fire-shovel and presented to him on that as on a dish. Certainly there was no perceptible diminution in the number of black beetles, and our regret was therefore the less when before long the hedgehog mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps the beetles ate him; perhaps he managed to slip out unobserved into the yard. At all events, no trace of him was ever discovered; not even his skeleton in the flue, as was the case with Frank Buckland’s hedgehog.
After this, I don’t suppose we expected much in the way of beetle-eating from his successor, known amongst us by the name of Hogatha; but she was less shy and more sociable than many hedgehogs, and amused us by her droll ways. She would of course roll herself into a prickly ball when touched, but would uncurl as I sat with her on my lap, and look about her with her bright little eyes. I think she would soon have become tame, and I should have made a pet of her, but for one unfortunate circumstance. If even the whale has his unmentionable parasite, it will not perhaps appear surprising when I mention that fleas in great number inhabited my little friend’s bristly coat. When she uncurled as she lay on my lap, they could be seen running in and out over her odd little head and face. Perhaps this is a favourite locality, being less bristly, and presumably more comfortable for the fleas than the more prickly portions of the body. But it was too much. Not even for the sake of cultivating the acquaintance of the charming Hogatha, could I face the prospect of restless nights and irritated skin, so our friendship waned.
It must have been this hedgehog which frightened me one night. I was not learned in natural history, and didn’t know that hedgehogs could run fast and mount stairs. It was late at night, and I was in bed, when I was startled by hearing strange noises in the passage outside my door. Sometimes they appeared distant, sometimes near; sometimes there came a kind of scraping at the door, which had a most uncanny sound. Is there such a thing as being physically superstitious, the mind having little or nothing to do with it? If so, I was physically superstitious; and the tendency which was in my blood, handed down perhaps from old Breton ancestors, was developed (parents and nurses, please take heed to my words!) by ghost stories told me in my childhood. At the time of which I am writing, though quite grown up, I well remember there was one story in particular I hardly dared recall, which, if it came back to my memory in the night, would cause the old feeling of terror to overwhelm me like a flood; wherefore it was with an effort that I got up and lit the gas; then, ‘taking my courage in both hands,’ I opened the door—and behold! there was Hogatha tearing up and down the long passage like an express train! I couldn’t consent to have her and her fleas, and I couldn’t have her without, so I conveyed her down-stairs, and shut her in the kitchen.
Then there was the sweet little baby hedgehog, given me by a lad who found a nest in his garden. We didn’t mean to be cruel, either of us, but no doubt were so, for the poor little thing was too young to be taken from its mother. I could not induce it to eat or drink, and at last I gave it to the cat, which had kittens at the time, to see if she would adopt it. She received it graciously when I put it into her basket, as though it had been her own kitten. But it was all no use; the poor little thing pined and died.
We were by this time pretty well convinced that beetle-eating on the part of hedgehogs was chiefly theoretical, with just as much relation to the realities of life as many other theories, and no more. We desired, however, to keep our minds open to new impressions; and when told that they were useful in a garden because they would eat the snails and slugs, we believed our informant, and hailed with gratitude the arrival of two fresh hedgehogs. They were named Paul and Virginia, and were shut up in the summer-house, with the idea that when they had become well accustomed to that as their place of abode, they might not run away when allowed to go loose in the garden. But there must be some mistake about their fondness for snails and slugs. I took one to Paul (or Virginia, I am not sure which) one day; and, after some hesitation, he slowly ate it; but presently threw it out of his mouth. It didn’t seem encouraging when you remember that they were expected to help to clear the garden of such pests. However, Paul and Virginia were allowed, when supposed to be sufficiently at home, to take their walks abroad, and then they also disappeared, nor have I ever seen either of the queer creatures since.