Page images
PDF
EPUB

litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old: they, I find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of parturition: but it is plain that they soon harden; for these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and side as would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled with caution. Their spines are quite white at this age; and they have little hanging ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones. They can, in part, at this age, draw their skin down over their faces; but are not able to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, fot the sake of defence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, is, because the curious muscle that enables the creature to roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full tone and firmness. Hedge-hogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum with leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for the winter; but I never could find that they stored in any winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do.

I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the fieldfare, (turdus pilaris,) which I think is particular enough. This bird, though it sits on trees in the day-time, and procures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn hedges; yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be seen by the Fauna Suecica; yet always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the heath on our forest. And, besides, the larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat stubbles; while the bat fowlers, who take many redwings in the hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and from themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for which I am by no means able to account.

his audacity, that he took the top of his axe and despatched him in an instant. Various game-keepers have frequently told us that they suspected the predatory habits of the hedge-hog, though we never knew an instance in which the fact was so satisfactorily proved as in the present.

In the year 1799, there was a hedge-hog in the possession of Mr Sample, of the Angel Inn at Felton, in Northumberland, which performed the duty of a turnspit, as well, in all respects, as the dog called the turnspit. It ran about the house with the same familiarity as any other domestic quadruped, and displayed an obedience, till then unknown in this species of animal.-ED.

I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moosedeer; but, in general, foreign animals fall seldom in my way; my little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere of my own observations at home.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, March, 1770.

ON Michaelmas day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning before. However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped; I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this deer and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs; on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the gralla order. I measured it, as they do a horse, and found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at : but then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs: the ears were vast anċ lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. * lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America.

This

*The gigantic moose-deer is said by some travellers to attain from eleven to twelve feet; but it is probable that the size of a large horse is more near its dimensions. The European elk reaches from seven to eight feet, and measures in length, from the muzzle to the insertion of the tail, ten feet.

The elk was at one time a native of Ireland, as its remains in a fossil state are often discovered in that country. A very large fossil skeleton was found in the Isle of Man, in 1821, while digging a marle pit. It was obtained for the Edinburgh College Museum, by that patriotic nobleman the late Duke of Atholl. ED.

[graphic][merged small]

It is very reasonable to suppose, that this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants, towards which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must contribute much. I have read somewhere, that it delights in eating the nymphæa, or water lily. From the fore-feet to the belly, behind the shoulder, it measured three feet and eight inches; the length of the legs before-and behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely long; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and splayed. The spring before, it was only two years old, so that most probably it was not then come to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and a half! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which died the spring before. În the same garden was a young stag, or red-deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there might have been a breed; but their inequality of height must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c. minutely; but the putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In the house, they shewed me the horn of a male moose, which had no front antlers, but only a broad palm, with some snags on the edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.

Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw; and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are the same creature.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, April 12, 1770.

DEAR SIR,— I heard many birds of several species sing last year after midsummer; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow-hammer, no doubt, persists with more steadiness than any other; but the woodlark, the wren, the

« PreviousContinue »