192

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

name of anguille de haye (hedge eels), I must say that they :are not hy any means a delicacy.

Hedgehogs are also said to be excellent food; hut I can \say the contrary, as I have given them a fair trial. Theyhave a dreadfully diuretic taste, and are dry as tow withal.Porcupines are certainly very good ; their flavour is some-thing between that of the rabbit and the hare. Cooked inagrodolce, like wild boar, they are delicious.

Both porcupines and hedgehogs, who are cousins inspecies, are omniverous; but the former are far moregraniverous than the latter. They both kill, and thelatter will greedily devour, vipers and other serpents. Ihave frequently placed a viper on the floor of my room, inthe presence of a hedgehog. The former, no sooner seteyes on his enemy, than he hastened to twist his tail aroundthe leg of table or chair. The hedghog would approach theviper, cautiously, going round and round him several times.During this reconnoitring, the viper kept turning his headround and round to face his enemy, but suddenly, wasseized by his sharp teeth, and held in a firm obstinate gripe. |The very instant the hedgehog takes his hold, he coils himself jup into a ball, and leaves the poor devil of a viper, to biteaway as much as he likes against the sharp prickles whichdefend the wearer. Thus, as in a vice, the viper surely dies,bitten through and through, and held until he giveth up theghost. This consummation, devoutly wished for by thehedgehog, no sooner comes than lie falls to work and eats the jviper up, to which is, probably, to be attributed, according tothe olden pharmacopseia, the fact, of no one individual of thehedgehog family, ever having been known to die of consump-tion. I shall speak of another very interesting kind of largeserpent when I catch one, which will be in a future chapter jof this work, then I shall introduce my readers to several of 5them by name and surname individually. ;