Undoubtedly, gypsies are very fond of hedgehogs, some having dogs specially trained to find and take them; the pigs are usually cooked in either of the following ways:— The hedgehog, after having been killed by being struck smartly on the head with a stout stick, then receives a certain amount of preparation, and in districts where the requisite clay is procurable, the animal, skin and spines included, is completely encased in it and is well cooked in a bed of glowing wood ashes. The al fresco _chef_ is able to judge to a nicety when the meat is done, when the ball is withdrawn, after which the clay is broken and dexterously removed, bringing away with it the spiny covering of the hedgehog. At other times, the luckless hotchi, after being killed is skinned, an operation needing a gypsy to perform expeditiously, and the animal, after some further preparation, is spitted on a stick and roasted before a glowing wood fire, the spit being usually revolved by hand-power of two of the family—one at either end. In either case, hedgehog braised or roast seems to be a luxury to be coveted; indeed, a gypsy epicure told me that as articles of food he considered them “worth ten shillings apiece.” In winter, gypsies do not disdain as food the common squirrel, in the bringing of which to earth some of them are expert. Rabbits, too, are quadrupeds with which—in the shape of viands at least—most gypsies have a fairly intimate acquaintance. While deprecating the killing of squirrels, hedgehogs and other creatures of the wilds, it would be unfair to blame the gypsies, who do it in order to assuage hunger, as is almost invariably the case, while ignoring the fact that people who have not that excuse, kill infinitely greater numbers of such creatures, often with far greater cruelty, for so-called “sport.” In the foregoing somewhat discursive, but absolutely veracious accounts of Romany life, I have endeavoured to record, with strict impartiality and in readable form, phases and episodes of gypsy existence, which in the nature of things must be quite inaccessible by any other means, to all but a few. [Illustration: OFF TO THE “‘OPPIN’.”] In a recent newspaper article, gypsies are called outlaws; on turning up “outlaw” in a modern dictionary, one finds the word defined as “a person deprived of the protection of the law.” Surely this statement in the article in question must have been a reflection of the desires of the writer, for the outlaws referred to were a section of the English gypsies—virtually such as are the subjects of my pen, pencil and camera. It is to be feared that the spirit of bigotry and uncharitableness that characterized the Middle Ages is not dead; but, like the justly detested couch grass, lives and grows around us unseen, excepting for the elegant and innocent-looking but tell-tale evidences here and there on the surface.