thirty-first; since which I have not seen or heard any. Swallows
were observed on to November the third.



Letter XXVII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770.

Dear Sir,

Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields. The manner in which
they eat their roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very
curious: with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their
lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards,
leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are
serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they
deface the waffles in some measure by digging little round holes. It
appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are
no inconsiderable part of their food. In June last I procured a 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 sides 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