Its habits are identical with those of the European Hedgehog. Like that animal it is carnivorous, feeding on worms, snails, frogs, lizards, snakes, and similar creatures, and occasionally devouring the eggs and young of birds that make their nest on the ground.
Small as is the Hedgehog, it can devour all such animals with perfect ease, its jaws and teeth being much stronger than might be anticipated from the size of their owner.
One or two objections that have been made to the translation of the Kippôd as Hedgehog must be mentioned, so that the reader may see what is said on both sides in dubious cases. One objection is, that the Kippôd is (in Isaiah xiv. 23) mentioned in connexion with pools of water, and that, as the Hedgehog prefers dry places to wet, whereas the Bittern is essentially a marsh-dweller, the latter rendering of the word is preferable to the former. Again, as the Kippôd is said by Zephaniah to "lodge in the upper lintels," and its "voice to sing in the windows," it must be a bird, and not a quadruped. We will examine these passages separately, and see how they bear upon the subject. As to Zephaniah ii. 13, the Jewish Bible treats the passage as follows:—"And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and arid like the desert. And droves shall crouch in the midst of her, all the animals of nations: both pelican and hedgehog (Kippôd) shall lodge nightly in the knobs of it, a voice shall sing in the windows; drought shall be in the thresholds, for he shall uncover the cedar-work."
Now the reader will see that, so far from the notion of marsh-land being connected with the Kippôd, the whole imagery of the prophecy turns upon the opposite characteristics of desolation, aridity, and drought. The same imagery is used in Isaiah xxxiv. 7-12, which the Jewish Bible reads as follows, "For it is the day of the vengeance of the Eternal, and the year of recompenses for the quarrel of Zion. And the brooks thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not go out night nor day; the smoke of it shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. Pelican and hedgehog (Kippôd) shall possess it; owls also and ravens shall dwell in it; and he shall stretch over it the line of desolation, and the stones of emptiness." And to the end of the chapter the same idea of drought, desolation, and solitude is carried out.
Thus, even putting the question in the simplest manner, we have two long passages which directly connect the Kippôd with drought, aridity, and desolation, in opposition to one in which the Kippôd and "pools of water" are mentioned in proximity to each other. Now the fact is, that the sites of Nineveh and Babylon fulfil both prophecies, being both dry and marshy—dry away from the river, and marshy among the reed-swamps that now exist on its banks.
So much for the question of locality.
As to the second objection, namely, that the Kippôd was to lodge in the upper lintels, and therefore must be a bird, and not a quadruped, it is sufficient to say that the allusion is evidently made to ruins that are thrown down, and not to buildings that are standing upright.
As to the words, "their voices shall sing in the windows," the reader may see, on reference to the English Bible, that the word "their" is printed in italics, showing that it does not exist in the original, and has been supplied by the translator. Taking the passage as it really stands, "Both the cormorant and the bittern (Kippôd) shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; a voice shall sing in the windows," it is evident that the voice or sound which sings in the windows does not necessarily refer to the cormorant and Bittern at all. Dr. Harris remarks that "the phrase is elliptical, and implies 'the voice of birds.'"