"While perusing your interesting article on the hedgehog, some slight personal experiences of this animal recurred to my mind, and I therefore thought it might be as well to communicate them to you, to show that, according to my limited experience, the hedgehog is not quite such a harmless and innocent creature as you endeavour to make him, and further, that your practical experiments with the hungry animals and the eggs are not sufficiently satisfactory to establish and set at rest once and for ever the hedgehog's innocency. To be brief: two or three summers ago, while living in the Highlands of Scotland, and within one hundred and fifty miles of the Highland capital, about ten o'clock on a beautiful Sunday evening in the month of June, and shortly after a most genial shower of rain had fallen to refreshen the young crops, my attention was attracted by the most alarming and violent cackling of a hen that had just begun to incubate on two or three addled eggs, or 'nest eggs' as they are called. Wondering what would be the cause of this noisy demonstration on the part of the hen, and thinking that probably a thief might be at hand, I at once repaired to where the hen was. I could see no one about, but there the hen was, as noisy as ever, looking towards her nest, advancing apparently to charge some unseen enemy, and then suddenly making a retrograde movement in the most frantic manner, without attacking her enemy. On stooping down and peeping into the corner where the nest was (for by this time it was almost dark), I observed a round dark object in comfortable possession of the nest; this was a hedgehog. If I remember well, one of the eggs was broken, and there was very little of the contents left. This, I am almost sure, was the case, though I would hardly go so far as to swear to it at this distance of time. Probably in these circumstances you will say, 'Then, if you can't actually swear to it, your information deserves no attention.' However, bear with me a little longer. On another occasion, on a similar fine evening, about the same hour, and about four weeks after the above, I heard another hen, which, with a brood of some eight or ten fine young chickens, had taken up its night quarters quite near the scene of the first row, making a like noise. Thinking a cat might be about, and therefore must be the enemy now, I went up to see what was doing. There the hen was, standing a short distance from the nest, with only two chickens by her side; the others could not be seen. On going nearer the nest, there was another hedgehog in quiet possession. Below him in the nest were one or two dead chickens; their little heads were crushed quite flat and wet, as if some animal had been trying to chew the heads. Outside the nest were two more dead chickens, their heads being in the same flat and wet condition. The chickens were about a week old, and, so far as I can recollect, there was no other disfigurement. In the morning two