ight, and takes excursions
after sunset.'

It may be remarked that hedgehogs must be somewhere in the daytime; this
is true, but the difficulty is to discover their hiding-place, which is
usually a hole or a thick clump of herbage. A search in the dark with a
lantern has been tried, and has been successful, but not often; still,
those who know how, manage to secure these animals, for they are to be
bought in the London streets. People buy them to keep indoors, as
killers of blackbeetles, or perhaps they are turned out to destroy
garden insects. Somebody who has had them in his garden remarks that it
is no easy task to find them, even though you know every corner, for
they have such artful ways.

There are some people who think hedgehogs may do harm amongst garden
plants, turning up roots occasionally in their hunts after insects,
perhaps even nibbling young shoots; and this is quite possible. Piggy is
of a greedy nature, certainly, and if he has the range of a kitchen
swarming with blackbeetles, he will feed on them until he makes himself
ill. Odd, too, are the noises he produces when he is 'on the warpath.'
The sounds come partly from himself, but also partly from things he
clatters against during his wanderings. One night, a gentleman who had
a hedgehog heard a very peculiar noise in his kitchen; he went to see
what it was, and found that the animal had stormed a cheese-dish. It had
lifted the heavy lid to feast upon the cheese inside, making the cover
rattle on the edge of the dish. We should not, perhaps, fancy a hedgehog
capable of gymnastic feats, but it is an animal with rather a liking for
a wall-climb, and has been known to mount one that was nine feet high,
aided by creepers on the wall. Another has been noticed to climb an
ordinary wall, laying hold of little projections. Upon a search for a
missing hedgehog, he was found at the bottom of the stairs, having made
a nest under the stair-carpet. Another time, the same hedgehog travelled
up to a bedroom, and kept still all day; some one went to bed early, but
woke suddenly on hearing a noise, and, jumping out of bed, stepped on
the animal's back. In a home, Piggy usually becomes amiable, and will
shut up his spines to be stroked.

THE REWARD OF A GENIUS.

Dismay and indignation were expressed most obviously on the faces of the
group of boys wending their way homewards.

'I'd like to know what "Simmy" expects us to do?' said Crowther,
moodily. (Had h