Abstract
Among English farmers and game wardens, a large body of folklore on hedgehogs has existed for centuries. The first scientific description of these mammals was contained in Barrett-Hamilton’s ‘A History of the British Mammals’ published in 1910. Herter’s ‘Der Biologie der Europaeischen Igel’ written in 1938 includes a wider summary of continental literature which is based largely on the study of laboratory or tame animals.
Despite the return of interest to mammalian field studies over the last decade or so, it is somehow surprising that such a common animal as the hedgehog has been generally overlooked. In New Zealand, Wodzicki (1950) and Brockie (1958) have both examined aspects of the ecology of the hedgehog, Brockie intimating that the hedgehog population of New Zealand far exceeds that of Britain. The contact between man and hedgehogs participating in some of the zoonoses in this country cannot be overlooked.
This thesis is an attempt to determine what part New Zealand hedgehogs play in the spread and carriage of human and animal diseases. The work is divided into three sections: Section I dealing with dermatophytes and yeast recoverable from hedgehogs; section II with bacteria; and section III with a discussion on some ecological aspect of the skin microflora. [from Introduction]