Un Ghrain̄eog.—(THE HEDGEHOG.)
Some twenty years ago it was not unusual in the south of Ireland to see boys assembled about a fire of straw, loudly exulting over a flame-surrounded victim, whose attempts to escape, rendered nugatory by a timid retraction as it were into himself, served but to call forth louder shouts of triumph from his persecutors, who thought they justified their savage deed by proclaiming its hapless object as a witch, a robber of orchards, and a sucker of cows. Leaving to our antiquarian friends to discover whether the cruel act in question was not a holocaust originating in the mystic rites of Pagan times, it is for us to vindicate the wronged, and show the absurdity of the charges by which wrong has been maintained, and at the same time to indicate such matter as may serve to direct kindness to that innocent victim of ignorance, the inoffensive Hedgehog. That it is not a witch according to the old law, may be proved in a court of justice spite of the popular opinion and in defiance of the authority of Shakspeare, whose witches in Macbeth are warned that the proper time had come to commence their infernal incantations by “thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.” We have no witness that a hedgehog ever rode a broomstick or vomited knives, skewers, coals of fire, or any such like legal proofs of witchcraft; neither, perhaps you exclaim, is the writer of so much nonsense a witch. True it is that the creature so named has its place nowhere in the classification of a zoologist, yet still an undefined idea of its existence floats in the imagination of the most ignorant, and it is not extraordinary that an opinion once universal should still linger in unenlightened minds. In no way do we consider superstitious prejudices can better be extinguished than by inducing accuracy of observation of natural phenomena, which shows that nothing supernatural exists. The second charge, that the hedgehog is a robber of orchards, is a very old one. Pliny, as translated by Holland, states—“Hedgehogs make their provision beforehand of meat for winter in this wise: they wallow and roll themselves upon apples and such fruit lying under foot, and so catch them up with their prickles, and one more besides they take in their mouth, and so carry them into hollow trees.”
Now, this has no foundation in fact. True it is that the hedgehog is very often found in the neighbourhood of orchards; but then this may be accounted for by the fact that the fences of such places are usually of exactly the thick and unfrequented kind the animal best likes to inhabit. Our repeated experience has never enabled us to discover that a hedgehog will eat apples; on the contrary, in early youth, when imbued with the general belief that this fruit was their diet, we have in more than one or two instances (most cruelly as we now believe) starved to death unfortunate specimens, which we shut up in a box with an ample supply of apples, not one of which they ever ate. That a magpie will steal and hide silver spoons, or a raven silk stockings, we know, and may use it as an argument that animals steal what they do not want; but that a hedgehog steals apples in the way stated, experiment will at once prove to be untrue, for, from the varied position of the points of the spines when fixed, it is impossible to fasten an apple upon them; and when they are not fixed, they yield at once to the pressure made in the attempt. Though domesticated hedgehogs can easily be brought to feed on bread and milk or dressed vegetables, yet all our observation goes to prove that in a state of nature, or when permitted to stray in a garden, they never eat any but animal food. This is at variance with the generally received opinion, which is supported by the authority of White, who, in his admirable History of Selborne, complains that hedgehogs injured his garden by boring with their long snouts under the plantain that grew in his grass walks, eating off the root upwards, leaving the tufts of leaves untouched, and defacing his grounds by making unsightly holes. He then immediately goes on to prove that these identical animals used beetles as no inconsiderable portion of their food. Now, it strikes us that his previous observation was not made with his usual accuracy, and that the hedgehogs did not eat the roots of plantain, but dug up where they had been to catch the larvæ of beetles that had just devoured them. Thus rooks have been charged with wantonly plucking up grass, while the truth is, that they only pull up plants attacked at the root by the larvæ of the cockchaffer or some other of the Phytophagous coleoptera (as vegetable-eating beetles are called), catch in the fact the destructive insect, and so stop its ravages; thus rendering important services to those who, for lack of accurate observation, falsely accuse and mischievously shoot them. Trusting we have satisfied you that the hedgehog does not steal apples, we come to the next charge, that he sucks cows. To refute this we have the best possible evidence in the animal’s mouth, the structure of which is completely unsuited to the accomplishment of such an object. That he will drink milk with avidity when domesticated, is certain, but this is only a taste he acquires in common with hundreds of other animals: there is scarcely one that may not be induced to relish such diet. Having thus cleared our hero (a name he fully deserves, as he wins battles by passive resistance) from the charges brought against him, we proceed to give some anecdotes of our personal knowledge, and shall finish with a few interesting facts in his history, for the information of those who take pleasure in accurate acquaintance with nature’s works.
We have before mentioned our starving of hedgehogs by endeavouring to make them eat apples. In one of these cases we suffered no small retribution. We were at school in these days, and a practice existed amongst us called “slating.” It was an innocent imitation of the murderous attacks made in Dublin by short-sighted combinators on such of their fellow tradesmen as refused obedience to their mischievous laws. With us it consisted in waylaying each other in the dark passages, and striking with the open palms the hats or caps of the surprised over the eyes. Having been thus treated many times, we bethought ourselves of turning our starved hedgehog to account, and proceeded to skin him with the intent of making a cap; so that when again “slated,” the attacking party would find reason to call out in the words of Chaucer,
“Like sharpe urchins his hair was growe.”
Accordingly, having hanged the animal up against a tree, we were essaying, by pulling, to effect a solution of continuity, as a surgeon would call it, between his body and skin, when the nail gave way, and he came down with considerable force on our forehead, accupuncturating us most awfully. The pain at the time was very great, and considerable soreness continued for several days, so much so that we were induced to suspect that some poisonous virus existed. We introduce this story for the purpose of calling attention to the effects of the spines when brought into action. Though experience induces us to believe that their punctures are more painful than those of pins and needles, we have not been able to ascertain why they should be so. Disabled in our attempt, we abandoned the skin, and it became common property. It was for some time used as one of the instruments for initiating the Johnny Newcomes into the mysteries of school life. Not a few will recollect how, when chilled by a previous salting or seasoning, as we called it, of snow crammed into the mouth, eyes, nose, and down the back, their sense of vitality was aroused, when escaping to bed they threw themselves on its thorny pre-occupant. Many, doubtless, then heartily wished themselves again within the zone of mamma’s apron-string; but the affair usually ended by storing up vengeance for, and the implement for executing it on, the next comer. A few years afterwards we procured another hedgehog, and provided him with earthworms, which he munged with great gusto. We mixed a few of them with bread and milk, and thus initiated him into this new diet. We tried him with frogs, mice, sparrows, and various other animal matters, of all of which he partook freely, and he soon became quite domesticated. We provided him a bed made in an old footstool in the kitchen; in this he remained during daylight rolled up in a ball of hay, from which it was quite a troublesome matter to extricate him; he could not be disentangled from it at all, without picking it carefully from his spines. Yet when he pleased himself to move, he came forth quite free, and did not drag a single filament out with him. He soon acquired a habit of making his appearance when tea was being served; the hissing of the water in the urn seemed to be his signal that his only meal was ready, for he regularly followed the servant who bore it into the tea-room, where he was indulged with a saucer of bread and milk on the rug before the fire. Having eaten as much as he desired, he commenced trotting about the room, taking precisely the same course round the legs of chairs and tables each time; and so he continued without a moment’s cessation to the latest hour the household remained up. Like the Guinea-pig, he seemed to have the greatest dislike to running across the room. In the morning he was always found snug in his bed. At length he disappeared, but previously did good service by devouring the cockroaches and beetles which infested the house. The desire of the hedgehog to pursue a beaten track was further evidenced by one we kept in a garden, which continued for months the course he first took, though a portion of it consisted in climbing with difficulty over some tiles, which a few inches on either side would have avoided. We often put things in his path, and watched his proceedings: he shrunk at first on finding the obstruction, and then tumbled over it in the best way he could.
Again we got another, and having heard that he may be at once tamed by indulging him in whisky, we mixed some in a saucer with sugar, and dipping his nose into it, he licked his chops, then ventured to make a lap at the enticing material, and, “startled at the sound himself had made,” he shrunk in, but came out again presently and lapped away most eagerly. The spirit soon showed its power, and like other beasts that indulge in it, he was any thing but himself; and his lacklustre leaden eye was rendered still less pleasing by its inane drunken expression. He staggered towards us in a ridiculously get-out-of-my-way sort of manner; however, he had not gone far before his potation produced all its effects; he tottered, then fell on his side; he was drunk in the full sense of the word; he could not even hold by the ground. We could then pull him about by the feet, open his mouth, twitch his whiskers, &c.: he was unresisting. There was a strange expression in his face of that self-confidence which we see in cowards when inspired by drinking. We put him away, and some twelve hours afterwards found him running about, and, as was predicted, quite tame, his spines lying so smoothly and regularly that he could be stroked down the back, and handled freely. We turned him into the kitchen to kill the cockroaches, and know nothing further of him.
Having given you so much of his manners, let us turn to his structural peculiarities. He is a small animal, not much larger than a rat when stripped of his spines and the muscular apparatus connected with them. It is this that enables him to roll himself up so as to present a chevaux-de-frize-like defence, impregnable to all ordinary enemies; and as there is much singularity in it, we will endeavour to describe it. On the back of the animal, between the skin and ribs, there is a large oval muscle with thickened edges, partially attached to the skin and spines. From this spring certain muscular bands, which are fixed firmly at the other ends to the head, tail, breast, and other parts of the body. The whole may be likened to a sort of elastic mantle, kept on the back by straps. When the owner wishes to roll up, he bends his body, then tightening the straps, he pulls the edge of the elastic mantle over, which contracting, draws it in as if it were a running string in a bag; at the same time the spines are fixed rigidly for defence by the straining of the muscles. There are many other interesting points in his anatomy. He possesses, as we do, well developed clavicles or collar-bones, which only exist in a rudimentary form in many quadrupeds. The peculiarities of his structure have exposed him to much, we will not say wanton cruelty, as its object was the increase of knowledge; it therefore should not be heavily censured, while so many unmeaning barbarities exist under the name of sports. It is stated as a proof of his endurance, that he has died without a groan under the slow process of zootomy inflicted upon him while nailed to a table. Such practices are seldom if ever engaged in at the present time.
The hedgehog is certainly a very apathetic creature, and at a low temperature becomes torpid; when in this condition he is doubtless devoid of feeling. Torpidity in many animals seems to stand in the place of migration in others, as a necessary condition when provision of food depends on season: in this case the fact seems to argue in favour of our position—that the hedgehog is in a state of nature strictly insectivorous; were it not so, torpidity would not seem necessary, as roots of vegetables could be had with facility as well at one season as the other. The hedgehog while torpid loses weight rather rapidly, so that the power of its remaining in this state is limited perhaps to a very few months.
The French academicians maintained long since that there were two species of hedgehog in their country. In reference to this, Ray, with his usual sagacity, after describing the common species, expresses a disbelief of there being another in Europe; a doubt since fully confirmed: for the dog and hog urchin, as the supposed species were called, have no more existence than the dog and hog badgers of our sportsmen have as distinct animals. Old authors notice several species under the name of hedgehog; but it appears by more accurate observation that but two of the animals mentioned by them are entitled to this name, viz. the one in question and the long-eared urchin of Siberia.
Since 1832, at least three other species have been enrolled in the records of science. It is said that when hedgehogs are born, their ears as well as their eyes are closed, and the former circumstance is noticed as a unique fact; however, another instance of imperforate ears occurred to us, in the case of a black bear cubbed at the gardens of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland: it lived but a few hours. The ear of the hedgehog, in the structure of its bony parts, presents some peculiarities strikingly different from most other quadrupeds.
The hedgehog is said to feed occasionally on cantharides; a single beetle of which would occasion death or serious injury to most animals. If this be true, it is only another example of what often occurs in nature, illustrating the old proverb “what is one’s meat is another’s poison.” In addition to the use of the hedgehog as the destroyer of cockroaches, his skin was an important monopoly in the time of the Romans, being used both as a clothes-brush and an instrument for hackling hemp. His calcined eyes formed part of an ointment which the ancients tell us had such a wonderful efficacy as to enable persons using it to see in the dark. His gall was used to take off hair, his fat to put it on, &c.
He is still eaten in the south of Europe; but, judging from his food and appearance, we would not recommend the practice here. The hedgehog, or urchin, as he is sometimes called, belongs to the order of Insectivora, and possesses much of the character and habits of shrews. His scientific name is Erinaceus Europæus; but we have headed this article with his Irish appellation, which is perhaps the only one not inserted in our popular authors.
B.
WATERPROOFING OF CLOTH, SILK, &c.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
Sir—I would feel happy should the few remarks I will at present offer be found worthy of insertion in your columns—it is on the subject of waterproofing cloth, or other fabrics, cotton, silk, leather, &c.
When the matter first came before the public, being determined if possible to ascertain the secret, after many unsuccessful experiments I found all the requisite properties to consist in a concentrated solution of acetate of alumina, which can be procured at a cheap and a moderate rate, by mixing equal quantities of sulphate of alum (common alum) and acetate of lead (sugar of lead), and dissolving them in water: one pound of each may be purchased for one shilling, which may be dissolved in one gallon and a half of boiling water, and well mixed; when cold, the supernatant liquid should be removed from the sediment, which consists of sulphates of lead, potash, &c. Any article of dress, no matter how slight the fabric, if well saturated in it, and allowed to dry slowly, will bear the action of boiling water, and not permit it to pass through: it is a remarkable fact, and there are many others connected with the same solution well worthy of investigation. I should be glad if some of your learned correspondents would favour us with the reason why the boiling water will not pass through, and the steam of the water will. Thinking it a subject not totally unworthy of examination, I remain, Sir, your most obedient servant,
Thomas Irwin,
Apothecary and Chemist, 48 Cuffe St.