Apples On Their Spines


by davidbunch - Date: 2010-07-10 - Word Count: 435 Share This!

The Legend of the Hedgehog also figures in the armorial bearings of several English families. In Lincolnshire there is (or was in the last century) a saying for a man with a ruffled temper: "He has gotten his back up, like a hedgehog going 'crabbing.' " And the famous English poet, John Clare, in his poem "The Hedgehog," written about a hundred years ago, says: "The hedgehog hides beneath the rotten hedge And makes a great round nest of grass and sedge, Or in a bush or in a hollow tree: And many often stoop and say they see Him roll and fill his prickles full of crabs And creep away. . . ."

Most modern British writers on the hedgehog discount the legend as a heritage from an uncritical age. But there was one writer, the late Miller Christy, who made an exhaustive study of the subject and arrived at the conclusion that the legend rested on observed facts, and deserved to be accepted as a most unusual and interesting but authentic piece of natural history lore. The objection is made that if hedgehogs habitually collect apples and other fruit by rolling on them and collecting them on their spines, then many observers would by now have observed and recorded the fact. It must be pointed out that the hedgehog is largely a crepuscular and nocturnal animal. In the nature of the case, therefore, we can hardly expect such an unusual proceeding to be seen often. Christy records several accounts from eyewitnesses, who claim actually to have seen hedgehogs collecting fruit in this way.

It is of interest to note that most of these come from the Continent of Europe and not from Great Britain. Christy was able to cite one observation from England, and that by a naturalist of some standing-Mr. W. H. Warner, a member of the Selborne Society and a reliable field observer. He wrote: "I well remember meeting with hedgehogs, in an Oxfordshire orchard, to the spines of which several apples were sticking. The apples had adhered to the spines, there was little doubt, when the creatures were rolling under the trees." Apparently Warner considered this no legend.

It is of interest to note that the name of the great Charles Darwin is associated with the positive side of this famous legend. He passed on to one of the natural history periodicals of his day an observation of a Mr. Gisbert, who was in the Spanish consular service. Gisbert said that, in Sierra Morena in Spain, he had often seen hedgehogs moving along with at least a dozen large strawberries sticking on their spines.

Related Tags: crabbing, apples, hedgehog, christy, spines

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