does not mind being tossed about a good deal, and so long as it does not unroll itself its enemy cannot harm it much. You cannot compel a hedgehog to unroll itself, and you cannot pull it out of its ball form by main force; it will die before it will give in.

The young hedgehogs are strange little things; they do not look like hedgehogs at all; they might pass for birds. Like kittens and puppies, they do not see till they are some days old; nor do they hear either, though they have little hanging ears. The spines are soft and flexible, being little white dumpy spikes, not unlike the beginnings of feathers on a young bird. If the mother do not eat them up, the little hedgehogs grow fast; they soon get stiffer and darker spines, and they gradually learn to draw their skin down over their faces. It is not till they are about full grown that they can curl themselves up into prickly balls.

The hedgehog eats all kinds of animal food. He has good teeth, and he is willing to try them on any sort of game, hares, rabbits, partridges, and so forth. He is quite content with a fowl, or even with a mouse, or a frog, or a snake. He finds a dainty dish in a nest of young birds. He is fond of fish, as well as of bread and milk. He is not known to eat any kind of raw vegetable; but he digs little holes about them in search of insects, worms, snails, and such like prey. He is a great foe of all the tribe of black-beetles, whom he pursues and devours without mercy. As a hunter of the beetle he is made welcome in kitchens, bakehouses, and gardens.

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts, and blindworms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.

Chorus.

Philomel, with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
Never harm,

Nor spell, nor charm,

Come our lovely lady nigh!
So good-night, with lullaby.

Second Fairy.

Weaving spiders, come not here;

Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;

Worm, nor snail, do no offence.

Chorus.

Philomel, with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
Never harm,

Nor spell, nor charm,

Come our lovely lady nigh!
So good-night, with lullaby.

THE SWALLOW.

THE swallow is one of those birds that come and go with the warm weather. Its twitter is generally heard about our windows in the first half of April, and it stays till the middle of September, unless the weather be rather cold and cheerless.

The swallow is a very beautiful little creature. The light chestnut feathers of the forehead shade gradually into a deep blue which forms a glossy coat for the upper parts of the body and wings. The darker feathers of the tail are patched with white. The under parts are lighter, as usual, with a very deep blue sash across the top of the chest. The stockings and boots are as black as the beak.

The swallow likes to dwell with man, and often does it find shelter under the same roof. It places its nest near the eaves of our houses, where it will be quite safe from wind and rain; sometimes it builds in a disused chimney, especially if it can get the benefit of the warmth of a neighbouring flue that is not disused; sometimes it takes up its abode in the shaft of a disused mine or well. Like the eagle and the rook, the swallow is very fond of the spot where it makes its home; if it return in spring and find the house of its rearing in ruins, it laments as dolefully as the rook does over the fallen tree in the boughs of which it had built its nest and lived.

The nest of the swallow is not built with very great skill. It is made of a number of lumps or loads of mud or clay, which the bird brings and dots down together till the shell is at last roughly formed. The lining is made of softer materials, chiefly grasses. Such a nest we very often see sticking against the wall of a house. The little creature fixes its sharp claws upon any roughness on the bare wall, and presses its tail against the surface; and thus it clings and works in order to make a start. If any one wish to keep the bird away, he may wash the wall with soap or oil, upon which the mud or clay will not stick.

As the swallows pass to and fro between their nests and the trees and fields, you may observe how swiftly they fly and in what graceful curves they sweep through the air. Often you will see them going home with great mouthfuls of food for their young ones. They live upon insects; and these they devour as diligently during the day as the bat does during the night. If it were not for the swallows, there might soon be another plague of flies. They consider beetles a great treat, as well as drone bees, which are big plump morsels and have no sting to defend themselves.

If there be two broods in one year, which sometimes happens, the second brood is in danger of being rather unfortunate. The parent birds may stay on into the late season, if the weather be fairly good, but if the weather break before the young swallows are able to fly along, the little fledglings are left to their fate.