from the odium which has, during so many ages, been attached to it, I am obliged to confess that it is a most pugnacious animal, and this pugnacity is the cause of the death of those we meet with in our walks, during the months of April and May. At this season of the year the males fight together, and I have examined several of those I have found dead. They were all males. I sent some also, to Mr. Gulliver of the Royal Horse Guards, Blue, whose researches into Natural History have been equally curious and indefatigable, and he discovered several livid spots about the neck and shoulders. And from other appearances, it would seem that the animals died from injuries received when contending for the females. This decisive fact will be sufficient to controvert the various opinions, which have been brought forward, as to the frequent appearance of the dead shrew.

It may be mentioned that this species is now ascertained not to be the Sorex araneus of Linnæus, but the Sorex tetragonurus* of Continental authors.

The Hedge-hog is another of those persecuted animals, which the superstitions of the vulgar and ignorant have denounced as injurious to man. These little inoffensive and patient animals are, therefore, killed without remorse, and nailed to

*This mouse in Suffolk is called the rennie; the name of shrew is not at all known to the peasantry.

trees and barns as trophies of the zeal and activity of their destroyers. They have been accused of sucking cows, injuring their udders, and other delinquencies, all of which accusations are equally erroneous. So far from being hurtful, they are beneficial to man, by feeding on slugs, snails, beetles and other insects, thus assisting in keeping down too great a number of them, and preventing their becoming injurious in our fields and gardens. The hedge-hog will also feed upon fruit, such as apples, crabs &c., and I have reason to believe on black-berries. I have also been assured that it eats frogs and mice. It has been accused of sucking eggs, but I have never with all my enquiries, been able to procure a satisfactory proof that this was the case from any of the keepers in the Royal Parks, in most of which the hedge-hog is plentiful. It will also feed on some roots, and Mr. White, in his history of Selborne, mentions its eating those of the plantain in his garden. It remained however for Professor Buckland to introduce this animal in a new character - viz. that of a devourer of snakes. I first met with the account in Mr. Bell's history of British Quadrupeds, and it is thus agreeably related.

"Having occasion to suspect that hedge-hogs, occasionally at least, preyed on snakes, the Professor procured a common snake, and also a hedge-hog, and put them into a box together.

Whether or not the former recognized its enemy was not apparent. It did not dart from the hedge-hog, but kept creeping gently round the box. The hedge-hog was rolled up, and did not appear to notice the snake. The professor then laid the hedge-hog on the snake with that part of the ball where the head and tail meet downwards, and touching it. The snake proceeded to crawl-the hedgehog started, opened slightly, and seeing what was under it gave the snake a hard bite, and instantly rolled itself up again. It soon opened a second, and again a third time, repeating the bite, and by the third bite the back of the snake was broken. This done, the hedge-hog stood by the snake's side, and passed the whole body of the snake successively through its jaws, cracking it, and breaking the bones at intervals of half an inch or more, by which operation the snake was rendered motionless. The hedge-hog then placed itself at the tip of the snake's tail, and began to eat upwards, as one would eat a radish, without interruption, but slowly, till half the snake was devoured. The following morning the remaining half was also completely eaten up."

It is to be regretted that the size of the snake was not mentioned, as we might then have judged of the extent of the appetite of a hedge-hog.

The hedge-hog is readily tamed, and will become

familiar and even affectionate, as is the case with most animals, when treated kindly. It is to be hoped that these facts may assist in rescuing it from the persecution to which it has so long been subjected.

The Mole, also, is another of those useful animals which the ignorance and prejudice of man has doomed to destruction, and against which he wages continual warfare. Such is the impression of the injury done by them, that in some parts of Somersetshire the farmers are in the habit of carrying a gun, when they walk in their fields, in case they should see the earth in the act of being turned up by the moles; when this is the case, the farmer fires at the spot, and thus many moles are killed in the course of the year.

So far from the mole being an injurious, it is a most useful animal to the farmer. The little hillocks it casts up are generally composed of a rich and fine mould, extremely beneficial to the land when spread, and this should be done daily, or as often as the mole-casts are observed. A little boy may thus be profitably employed at a trifling expence. Young wheats, for instance, this sort of top-dressing invigorates, and besides, the runs of the mole beneath the surface are either so many channels to convey water to the roots, or they serve as drains to prevent too great an accumulation of it in one spot. There can be no doubt

that if the mole-casts are suffered to remain too long unspread, the young grain or grasses must suffer from suffocation, but this is the fault of the farmer. There are also other benefits to be derived from the mole. It devours not only immense quantities of the larvæ of the cockchaffer and of various flies and beetles, but also destroys the wire worm, and that so effectually, that few are to be found in localities frequented by this useful animal. When we consider the length of time the grub of the cockchaffer remains in the earth, before it assumes the shape of a perfect insect, and the destruction committed by it on the roots of plants, and when we hear, as we too often do, of the ravages of the wire-worm, we may wonder that the very instrument appointed by Almighty God to prevent those ravages, should itself be destroyed by man. I am however glad to find that in some places farmers are now beginning to admit the utility of the mole, in consequence of their having experienced the good effects of its operations.

I noticed in a former work a fact relative to the economy of the mole, which I have not seen mentioned by any writers upon this animal. I refer to a sort of basin which it makes, and which serves as a place of deposit for worms. M. St. Hilaire, Le Court and other French Naturalists who have paid much attention to the habits of