The hedgehog has long had a close connection with people. It has been an animal of fascination, endearment and cultural significance since the ancient Egyptians. The Romans regarded it as a weather prophet, and modern gardeners depend on the creature to keep their gardens free of pests. This book explores how this and other characteristics of the small creature have propelled it to the top of a number of polls of people's favorite animals. People react with passion and enthusiasm for the hedgehog, as it is, quite unusually, a wild animal that one can connect with. When scared the hedgehog stays still, allowing a closer look. It remains one of the few creatures that people can get close to without the fear of an attack, or it running away at the slightest movement. The hedgehog has spread through Europe and Asia to the foot of Africa, and is a prickly pet in the USA. The hedgehog's appeal and public accessibility has lead to it to be found on numerous products, from advertising to films and children's books. Instantly recognizable, benign in reputation, Hedgehog demonstrates that there is much to admire about this beautiful, and now threatened, icon of wildlife.

Discover the many wonders of the hedgehog: a funny, charming creature of the countryside. Carrying its secrets beneath patterned spinesand roaming our fields, parks and gardens, why is it that the hedgehog fascinates so many of us? In A Prickly Affair, Hugh Warwick - life member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society - explores the quirky humour, misunderstanding and affection that characterises our feelings for this marvellous beast, going all out to explain the charm of the hedgehog. Although hedgehog psychics and the International Hedgehog Olympics may be too much even for him...

'Glorious... Political, passionate, perceptive' Robert Macfarlane An eye-opening exploration of the lines that cut through our countryside, from hedges to railways, and a passionate manifesto for reconnecting wildlife. Our landscape has been transformed by a vast network of lines, from hedges and walls to railways and power cables. In Linescapes, Hugh Warwick unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of these changes. As our lives and our land were fenced in and threaded together, wildlife habitats were cut into ever smaller - and increasingly unviable - fragments. Yet as Warwick travels across this linescape, he shows that we can help our flora and fauna to flourish once again. With his fresh and bracing perspective on Britain's countryside, he proposes a challenge and gives ground for hope, for our lines can and do contain a real potential for wildness and for wildlife.