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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Badger
+       A Monograph
+
+Author: Alfred E. Pease
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36830]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BADGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, David Garcia and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
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+
+
+THE BADGER
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BADGER. [_Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+    THE BADGER
+
+    _A MONOGRAPH_
+
+    BY
+    ALFRED E. PEASE, M.P.
+
+    AUTHOR OF
+    "THE CLEVELAND HOUNDS AS A TRENCHER-FED PACK,"
+    "HORSE BREEDING FOR FARMERS," ETC.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    LONDON
+    LAWRENCE AND BULLEN, LTD.
+    16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+    1898
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+    LONDON & BUNGAY.
+
+
+
+
+    "Hunting it is the noblest exercise,
+    Makes men laborious, active, wise;
+    Brings health and doth the spirits delight;
+    It helps the hearing and the sight:
+    It teacheth arts that never slip
+    The memory--good horsemanship,
+    Search, sharpness, courage, and defence,
+    And chaseth all ill-habits thence."--BEN JONSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE BADGER
+
+PART I
+
+
+I do not know of the existence of any monograph on the Badger, ancient
+or modern, in English or any other language. Nor have I been able to
+find any adequate description in any work on natural history or British
+fauna of this the largest, and by no means the least interesting, of the
+real wild animals that still exist in England and Wales. So that,
+however unfitted I may be to write a scientific treatise on the last of
+the bear tribe that we have yet with us, I have ventured to think that
+my own observations and researches, with experiences of the chase of
+this troglodyte, may be of interest to lovers of the animal world, and
+to not a few sportsmen.
+
+From my boyhood all wild animals have had for me an intense fascination,
+and though in later years my hunting-grounds have been for the most part
+in other countries and continents, and among larger game, I doubt if any
+of the beasts whose acquaintance I have thus made has been a source of
+greater interest to me than the badger. The charm of an animal for man,
+where the sporting is the master instinct, appears to be measured by his
+capacity to elude observation and defy pursuit; and the badger, judged
+by this test, is a charming creature. I may be mistaken, but to me it
+appears that the chase in its widest sense is one of the best schools
+for studying nature. Such knowledge as I have gained of the badger has
+been due to the indulgence of this "brutal" instinct, as it is profanely
+called, and from quiet observation. If the reader will spare a little
+time, I will show him the manner in which my observations are made, but
+I warn him that there is nothing scientific about them. I have no
+microscope and no dissecting-room.
+
+It is June. A hot summer's day is dying, and the sun is sinking through
+soft clouds of glory behind the pine woods on the hill. A thousand birds
+in vale and woodland are singing with an ecstasy and sweetness that seem
+tenderly conscious that the hours of song are numbered--that the days
+are coming when darkness or dawn will steal over the land in silence,
+unheralded as it is to-day by their wild sweet notes. We wander across
+the pasture by the cattle, and along the side of the ripening meadow
+towards the wooded bank under the edge of the moor, where the badger has
+his home. As we near the covert, a few rabbits that have ventured far
+out into the field frisk up the hill, alarming their less adventurous
+companions, and all make for the shelter of the wood, displaying a
+hundred little cotton tails.
+
+As the gate into the plantation opens a few wood-pigeons stop their
+cooing and fly swiftly up and out of the trees with a clean cutting
+slap-slap of their wings to some other solitude safer from intrusion.
+Once in the shadow of the firs, softly treading we come up-wind to the
+badger "set." Here we choose a place among the larch stems which gives
+us a good view of the most-used entrances to the earth, some fifteen
+yards from the nearest hole. We turn up our coat-collars, draw our caps
+over our faces, and settle ourselves in such positions as will least try
+our patience and muscles during the hour in which we must remain
+immovable. In idea nothing could be more delightful than to sit in the
+deepening twilight of a summer's evening, with a soft breath of air
+stirring the feathery larch tops against the sky above, the ground
+carpeted with the vivid green of the opening bracken, surrounded by the
+music of cooing wood-pigeons, the full notes of blackbird and thrush,
+and listening to the pleasant sounds carried on the breeze from the
+distant farms.
+
+Delightful as is the enjoyment of the confidences of Nature in her most
+hidden solitudes, the pleasure has its price, and the angler on a
+summer's eve can sympathize with the man who sits over a badger earth.
+But he at least can protect himself to some extent against the
+exasperating attacks of midges in myriads, and vent his feelings aloud,
+and flog the waters, whilst the latter must stoically endure the torture
+and the plague. The most he can do is occasionally to draw his hand from
+his pocket, and slowly move it to his face and massacre the settlers on
+his nose, his ears, his neck, and carefully move it again into its
+hiding-place. In spite of the torment, however, he may enjoy the sights
+and sounds, known to but few, that these witching hours alone can give.
+The rabbits emerge within a yard of him, first the little ones,
+unconscious of his eye, then the old ones sit up and, imitating his
+immovability, watch him critically with their black beady eyes set, and
+noses palpitating; after a while old paterfamilias gives his signal of
+alarm or warning by a sharp pat, pat with his hind foot, telling all
+round that there is something in his vicinity he does not know how to
+account for. The cry of the startled blackbird warns that some other
+enemy is on foot as he flies from the bur-tree to the thorn, and we see
+an old fox moving through the young bracken with lowered head and brush,
+starting off on his nightly raid. A belated squirrel throws himself from
+the tree above, runs close by us on the ground, up the stem of a larch,
+and is soon lost in the sea of green above. A numerous and dissipated
+family of little crested wrens, which should have settled for the night
+ere this, twitter with diminutive voices as they twist in and out and
+hang on the boughs of the spruce in front of us.
+
+Gradually, as the daylight fades, one after another of the singers
+becomes silent, the sounds of day are hushed, and a perfect silence
+reigns in the twilight amidst the trees. Without any warning we are
+conscious of the clean black-and-white face of an old badger over the
+earthwork outside his hole, and presently he is all in view, sitting
+with bowed fore-legs and his head turning on his lithe outstretched
+neck, scenting the night air. There is nothing to excite his suspicion,
+so he shambles to the nearest tree, puts up his fore-feet and rubs his
+neck, smells round the well-known trunk, and having satisfied himself
+that all is as usual, sits for awhile admiring the limited landscape
+before him. He then shuffles a few yards from the earth, scratches the
+soil here and there as if to keep his digging tools in order, and
+returns to the bottom of the tree. Another pied face appears, and more
+quickly than the first she trundles off to join her mate, and they
+bounce along one after another over the earths, round the trees, down
+one hole and out at another, and then rest awhile outside the earth they
+first emerged from. Three more come forth, and go through very much the
+same programme as the first, snorting and bumping along one after the
+other and one against the other.
+
+Presently one takes off into the thickest covert. You can hear him
+bumping along, sweeping through the bracken and crackling the dead wood.
+Presently the others come past you, tumbling along so close that you
+could hit them with your stick. Probably they take no notice, but if you
+wink, wince, or move they will shamble back to the earth and watch you
+for ten minutes. It is then a trial for your nerves. If you move you
+have seen the last of them for the night, but if you succeed in being
+perfectly still they will recover sufficient confidence to sally forth
+again, but will take off quickly in different directions for their
+night's ramble. Then at last we may raise our stiff limbs and turn our
+steps through the dark woods, leaving the fox and badger to their
+devices, and once more frightening the rabbits which flash past us as we
+wade homewards through the grass heavy and wet with dew. We have made no
+startling discovery on this our first night together by the badger
+"set," but probably we have made a better acquaintance with badgers in
+this hour than we could have gained in any museum of natural history,
+with the assistance of the most erudite Fellow of the Zoological
+Society.
+
+To understand and appreciate all sides of the badger's character you
+must see him in war as well as at peace; and such knowledge has to be
+purchased by great labour and bodily fatigue. In the name of sport, as
+in the name of liberty, great crimes are often committed. There are
+those who look upon hunting of all sorts as cruel and degrading, and
+cannot understand the pleasures of a chase involving the distress of
+pursuit or pain to any animal. I have a certain sympathy for such
+sentiments, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, my very love of
+animals increases my passion for hunting them. Besides the longing to
+come to close quarters with them, the desire to possess or to handle
+them, there is the natural ambition to be even with them. There is an
+unwritten code of honour in the field which, if followed, makes the
+struggle of wits and strength, of skill and endurance, a fair one, and
+one in which alone many a valuable lesson out of Nature's book can be
+taught. To relieve any tender consciences amongst my readers I may here
+declare, without wishing to reflect on brother sportsmen whose methods
+are more Cromwellian, that when victorious in the war with a badger,
+when, after many a hard-fought battle in his subterranean
+fortress--when mine and counter-mine, tunnel, shaft, and trench have
+driven him fighting to his last stand in his deepest and innermost
+citadel, and he has been forced to capitulate--I have never abandoned
+him to a victorious soldiery howling for blood, but have always given
+him honourable terms. I have never willingly or wantonly killed a
+badger; he has invariably become a pampered prisoner, or been
+transported to some new home, where some one whom I had interested in
+his species was prepared to give him protection, and a new start in
+life. Among those who have given my badgers protection I may name Mr.
+Edward North Buxton, who has done so much to maintain the natural beauty
+of Epping Forest, and to protect wild life within its borders. I know of
+several thriving colonies of badgers within the forest precincts
+descended from my prisoners of war.
+
+I have kept many badgers in confinement, but never to "try" my dogs, and
+all my terriers learnt their trade in legitimate fashion. Badger-baiting
+I unreservedly condemn--it is as much a profanation of sport as
+coursing bagged hares in enclosed grounds. There are degrees of
+wickedness, and when a badger is placed in a properly-constructed
+badger-box there are few terriers that would not be vanquished in the
+encounter. The figure below illustrates the correct box.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+One of the atrocious methods by which the badger was baited in the last
+century is described and denounced in volume xii. of the _Sporting
+Magazine_, 1788. "They dig a place in the earth about a yard long, so
+that one end is four feet deep. At this end a strong stake is driven
+down. Then the badger's tail is split, a chain put through it, and
+fastened to the stake with such ability that the badger can come up to
+the other end of the place. The dogs are brought and set upon the poor
+animal, who sometimes destroys several dogs before it is killed."
+
+Badger-baiting, it seems, was the price the race had to pay for its
+existence, and with the happy disuse of a brutal sport the harmless
+badger has been doomed to extinction. The only method by which any
+British wild animal can be preserved from extinction in this age of what
+is termed progress, is to hunt it. Who can doubt, that if fox-hunting
+and otter-hunting were stopped to-day, both these creatures would be
+extinct within the next few years? It may be a hard bargain to make with
+them, but considering their own crimes of violence, and their
+incompatibility with "civilization," it does not seem to be a too severe
+condition to impose on the fox and the otter, that if they are permitted
+to live they must at least submit to the risks and fortunes of the
+chase. Not being able to do more than speculate on the intellectual and
+nervous capacity of animals, we are apt to assign to them some measure
+of human powers of thought and feeling. Undoubtedly they are physically
+less sensitive, and we probably err when we ascribe to them more than a
+slight ability to anticipate, or credit them with such sentiments as
+anxiety, mental distress, and those thoughts and sensations that in the
+main make pain intolerable. Those species that have long been associated
+with man have, I think, a greater capacity for suffering. The
+individuality of each domestic race has been developed; the difference
+of temperament and character of each individual becomes more marked, and
+more or less humanized, according to the influences by which it is
+surrounded. There is a more uniform character and greater similarity of
+temperament among wild animals, and the more refined the civilization
+and the more cultivated the senses, the more sensitive will the whole
+animal become. This may be seen in the most common of Nature's
+operations. The wild beast produces its young with ease and without
+pain. With woman, raised amidst the refinements of civilization, the
+same operation is with every precaution and assistance sometimes a
+dangerous, always an agonizing ordeal.
+
+No, the terms are not hard. Take the case of a fox, the most hunted of
+animals. The ordinary lot of a fox compared with that of any other
+creature, wild or domestic, or even with man himself, is not an
+unenviable one. Unlike the domestic animals, he is not born into
+servitude or to die in early life by the butcher's knife or axe. Happier
+than man, he lives his life, whether longer or shorter, free from the
+worries, cares, and the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. The fox's
+life is free as air. Protected for the most part from the natural
+consequences of his marauding disposition, fair play is given to him to
+avoid the punishment he deserves by the exercise of that strategy,
+activity, and endurance with which he is so abundantly endowed. Two or
+three days in the three hundred and sixty-five he may have to exert
+himself more or less to save his brush, or the end may come swiftly and
+suddenly after a long run; but even so, are there not many of us who
+would be glad to know that our death would come as swiftly and
+painlessly to us as to the fox, who, flying for forty minutes before the
+pack, confident, perhaps, to the last that he is a match for his
+pursuers, is rolled over in his stride? The sportsman may pity the
+sinking fox, with every desire to see the victory of the straining pack,
+in the moment when, after gallantly standing up before hounds, a
+straight-necked veteran finds he has shot his last bolt, and turns with
+fire yet in his eye to meet death in its swiftest form.
+
+There is something strange in the mixture of pain with pleasure. My
+little son comes out cub-hunting with me in the early morning of a
+September day. He is the picture of delight, sitting on his pony among
+the hounds, the effigy of enjoyment as he follows them with his and his
+pony's head just above the high bracken, the incarnation of satisfaction
+as he receives his first brush and is blooded. He is none the less a
+little sportsman for sobbing himself to sleep at night with his brush
+hugged under the bedclothes, because of the thought that the bright
+little cubs he saw killed will never again run in and out of the wood
+on the hillside as of yore. I look into his room the following day, and
+find him in his night-shirt busy extracting the tail-bone from his
+trophy, and he stops in his work only to ask when the hounds will be out
+again.
+
+The power of enjoying hunting of any sort is no evidence of want of
+tenderer feelings. It may be that the days of sport are numbered by the
+exigencies of what is termed the progress of civilization; but whether
+men's hearts will be braver, their bodies and minds healthier, or their
+natures kindlier and happier for the change, only time may show. All
+this is something in the nature of apology; but, excuse or none,
+thousands are conscious that the nearest approach to pure unmixed
+pleasure that they have known has been derived from the chase, where
+cares are forgotten, pulses quickened, eyes brightened, and the mind
+refreshed. About conscious or unconscious vicarious sacrifice with
+regard to the badger I will not say more than this, that the baiting of
+an animal in confinement, even though he be but the scapegoat for a
+thousand of his kind, is so repugnant to humanity, and so likely to
+breed cruelty, that though I lament his imminent extinction I would say,
+"perish _Meles taxus_" rather than let him pay this price for the
+continuance of his race, and, whatever view he might have himself, I
+would refuse him the option.
+
+The badger has made a wonderful struggle for existence, and may linger
+on for many years yet in the more secluded corners of England and Wales
+(in Scotland he is almost extinct), but he owes all to his own
+mysterious silent ways, and nothing to man's mercy in the matter. The
+intelligent and unprejudiced wearers of velveteen, who, with the tacit
+consent of their masters, have by means of the steel trap, flag-trap,
+and gun, exterminated and banished for ever the most interesting of our
+animals and the most beautiful of our birds, have hitherto failed in
+their ruthless attempt to rid earth and heaven of everything but furred
+and feathered game, so far as the badger is concerned. In many English
+counties, however, the badger has given in before ceaseless digging,
+snaring, and shooting, and the silent covert where he had his earth,
+where he dug and delved and made his wonderful subterranean stronghold,
+knows him no more. He has gone with the polecat, the pine marten, the
+wild cat, the harriers, the buzzards, and a host of the brightest and
+loveliest of our birds. Guiltless of the crimes of his fellow-victims
+against game, he was and is still ignorantly classed under that
+all-embracing word of the keeper, "vermin." There are few who lament his
+disappearance save perhaps the makers of shaving-brushes, and the old
+people whose faith in the efficacy of "badger-grease" can no longer find
+the opportunity of exercising the same. This faith is an old one. I read
+in the _Sporting Magazine_, 1800, volume xvii.--"The flesh, blood, and
+grease of the badger are very useful for oils, ointments, salves, and
+powders, for shortness of breath, the cough of the lungs, for the stone,
+sprained sinews, coll-achs, etc. The skin, being well dressed, is very
+warm and comfortable for ancient people who are troubled with paralytic
+disorders." Evidently a few badgers in the good old days supplied the
+place of the country doctor. About the fancied or really mischievous
+habits of the badger I shall have something to say later on.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+The badger (_Meles taxus_, or _Ursus meles_) is known under various
+aliases, viz. the Brock (Danish _Broc_, Erse _Broc_, Welsh _Brock_), the
+Pate, and the Grey. Of these the Brock is perhaps the commonest, and is
+the name most used in the north of England. There is an expression
+common in the north that would lead the ignorant to believe that a
+badger perspires, or sweats, viz. "sweating like a brock." In Yorkshire
+I often hear a man say, "Ah sweats like a brock," and the user of this
+elegant metaphor innocently imagines he is perspiring like a badger. But
+"brock" is the old north-country word for the insect known as
+"cuckoo-spit" (_Aphrophora spumaria_), which covers itself in the larval
+state with froth and foam (cf. Welsh _broch_, foam)--_vide_ Atkinson's
+_Dictionary of the Cleveland Dialect_. In parts of Cornwall and Wales
+the word "Grey" may be in use, but I myself have only come across it in
+books, more especially old ones. Though able to boast these several
+titles, there is but one species known in Europe, and in general
+appearance he is the same animal, though varying locally in size and
+shade of colour. He has been classed as belonging to the bear tribe, but
+the badger is really a single species and a sub-genus in itself. The
+dentition of a badger is half tuberculous and half carnivorous, and in
+this respect approaches the martens.
+
+About few animals has there been more nonsense written in regard to
+habits and anatomy, and for many of the popular notions concerning the
+badger there is no foundation whatever. In the ancient books descriptive
+of sport and wild animals we read that there were in England two kinds
+of badger--the one as we know it, and the other a "pig-badger," with
+cloven hoofs and other attributes of the porker. It is astonishing how
+these old authors drew upon their imagination, and where they found
+suggestions for their errors. In this case it may be they were misled by
+the custom, which still continues, of distinguishing between the dog and
+bitch, or male and female badger, by using the terms boar and sow; or it
+may be the idea dawned whilst they ate their rasher from a badger ham!
+
+There are altogether not more than five (or perhaps six) kinds of badger
+known throughout the world, so far as I know.[1]
+
+    [1] Lydekker, whose authority I accept, enumerates four kinds of
+        badger--
+
+        1. The American (_Taxidea americana_).
+        2. The Common (_Meles taxus_).
+        3. Malayan (_Mydaus meliceps_).
+        4. The Sand-badger (_Arctonyx collaris_).]
+
+1. The European badger, known over almost the whole of Europe and Asia.
+2. A larger species, confined to the high steppes of Eastern Siberia. 3.
+The North American mistonusk, or chocaratouch (_Meles labradorica_ or
+_hudsonius_). 4. The Mexican badger, found south of latitude 35 degrees.
+5. The Japanese badger. 6. The Indian badger (_Meles indica_) might be
+added perhaps, though it has a pig's snout, long legs, and long tail.
+Its native name is bhalloo-soor, _i.e._ the bear pig.
+
+Nos. 3 and 4, the chocaratouch and Mexican, differ so distinctly from
+the others in dentition, though in appearance similar to the European
+species, that a new genus, Taxidea, has been established for their
+reception.[2]
+
+    [2] In Lower California there is a variety of badger which differs
+        from described forms by its dark colouration and broad nuchal
+        stripe.
+
+Popular error, and old writers, describe the badger as having his legs
+shorter on one side than the other, and the latter, with philosophical
+ingenuity, have discovered therein a wonderful provision of nature; for,
+says Nicholas Cox, "He hath very sharp Teeth, and therefore is accounted
+a deep-biting beast; his back is broad, and his legs are longer on the
+right side than the left, and therefore he runneth best when he gets on
+the side of an Hill or a Cart roadway." The same author also
+states--"Her manner is to fight on her back, using thereby both her
+Teeth and her Nails, and by blowing up her Skin after a strange and
+wonderful manner she defendeth herself against any blow and teeth of
+Dogs. Only a small stroke on her Nose will dispatch her presently. You
+may thrash your heart weary on her back, which she values as a matter of
+nothing." If such a provision in the matter of legs did exist, one can
+realize the comfort of the uneven legs on a hill-side, but what gravels
+us is the discomfort of the return journey! The rolling, shambling gait
+that characterizes the badger is doubtless the origin of this absurd
+theory, which might be equally applied to any other member of the bear
+family. The European badger, as we find him in England, Wales, Scotland,
+and Ireland, stands about ten to twelve inches from the ground, has a
+long, stout body, with the belly near the earth. He has a coat so long
+and dense, and legs so short, that he appears to travel very nearly
+_ventre à terre_. The male is somewhat larger than the female, and
+weighs more. The weight of a male is about 25 lbs., that of a female
+about 22 lbs. When they are fat, or in grease in September, they will
+scale more. Badgers have been known to weigh up to about 40 lbs.; the
+largest I ever dug out and weighed was an old lean dog badger that
+scaled over 35 lbs.
+
+The head of the badger is wedge-shaped in general conformation, the back
+of the head large, the cheek-bones well sprung, and the muzzle fine and
+long. The nose or snout is black in colour, long and full; the eyes
+small, black, or black-blue; and the ears small, round, close-set, and
+neat. The strength of a badger's legs is most remarkable, and for his
+size (the animal only weighs from 19 lbs. to 35 lbs.) he possesses a
+most wonderful combination of bone and muscle. The legs are very short
+and the joints large; the feet, like the legs, are nearly black, and are
+large and long. The badger is a plantigrade, that is, when travelling he
+puts down the whole of his foot, including the heel, flat on the ground.
+His fore-feet are larger, longer, and better equipped for digging than
+his hind, but all are armed with long, sharp claws, and it is prodigious
+what he can effect with them. There is no mistaking his tracks--no
+animal's footprint is in the least like his. His heel is large and wide;
+this, and his four round, plump toes, leave an impression in sand, mud,
+or snow that cannot be confounded with any other. If the mud is deep, or
+there is snow on the ground, he also leaves the mark of his claws, but
+as a rule these are not observable, as he puts his weight on the sole of
+his foot--his tracks are usually almost in a line. The badger is cut out
+for a miner. His wedge-shaped head is capable of forcing a passage
+through sand and soft strata, whilst his armour-tipped diggers are
+worked by machinery that rivals in power the steam navvy; and whilst his
+fore-feet are going like an engine, throwing stones, bits of rock, sand,
+clay, and all that he comes in contact with between his fore-legs (which
+are set wide apart, leaving plenty of room under the chest), his
+powerful hams are working his hind-legs and feet like little demons,
+throwing back all that the fore-feet throw under his belly. And this is
+not all. His powerful jaw and teeth will cut, break, and tear all roots
+that obstruct his passage onwards, and it is most entertaining to see
+him going through earth, shale, and stone with the rapidity and
+sustained energy of a machine. No one who has not seen it would credit
+what one of these animals can do. I have often been defeated by their
+being able to penetrate more quickly than even a gang of men with
+pick-axe, spade, shovels, and crowbar could follow. And it is safe to
+say that as long as a terrier is not up to the badger, the badger is not
+only advancing quicker than the men (if his earth is on a hill-side),
+but has also, in nine cases out of ten, barricaded his retreat and
+scored a victory. I have known a badger, left for awhile by the terrier,
+bore his way straight up out to daylight and escape. The badger is
+covered with a thick, long-haired coat, which with a loose skin of
+extraordinary density and toughness forms a complete and effective
+armour. The hair on his head is short and smooth, and the sharp, clean
+black-and-white markings of his head give a very pretty and effective
+appearance to it. The general appearance in colour of a badger is a sort
+of silvery-grey, turning to black on the throat, breast, belly, and
+legs. Inverting the usual colouring of other animals, which is generally
+dark on the back, with lighter colouring on the belly and under the arms
+and thighs, the badger is lighter on the back and black underneath. Not
+only is this colouring peculiar to the badger, but his hair is unlike
+that of any other creature known to me, being light at the root and
+darker above.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The colour of a badger alters with age. The little cubs, till they are
+seven or eight months old, are a clean, bright, light silvery-grey; they
+then become yellower in their coats, a colour which they keep sometimes
+permanently, but which they generally change after two years for a suit
+of darker, purer grey. The badger's tail is about five inches long,
+covered with long, coarse, lighter-coloured hair than that on his body,
+and is of a yellowish-brown colour.
+
+The badger has another peculiar distinction that is somewhat mysterious,
+viz. a pouch, the vent of which is close under the root of the tail,
+and contains an oily foetid matter which he has the power of emitting.
+Different uses have been ascribed to this provision, such as that which
+ferrets and polecats have. I have never noticed a badger use it as has
+been suggested, as a mode of defence or annoyance, and am sure that this
+is not its purpose. But there is no doubt the badger sucks and licks
+this substance, whether by way of taking a tonic, a cooling draught, a
+stimulant, or other physic I cannot say. I am, however, inclined to
+believe, that from this source he is able to maintain his health and
+support life during those periods of seclusion and total retirement in
+his "earth" which have led naturalists to describe him as a hibernating
+animal.
+
+In this theory I am strengthened by a French author, Edmond Le Masson,
+who writes--"The badger does not always give evidence of his presence in
+his woody retreat.... There, should one go to see him, he may, from pure
+idleness, remain shut up, it being easy for him to support himself
+during the longest period of retirement by licking the secretion which
+oozes from the pouch under his tail." The author goes on to give an
+account which was sent to the French papers by M. Récopé, Garde Général
+at Marly-le-Roi, of a badger that was shut in a culvert without any food
+whatever for forty-five days, walled in on every side, and where no tree
+root could penetrate. A gamekeeper, a noted trapper, had blocked the
+exit, and tried in every way he could devise to trap him, from February
+18, 1853, to April 4, and when at last he succumbed to a ruse of the
+keeper's he was quite lively, and weighed nearly 19 lbs. It appears that
+however carefully his traps were set in the mouth of the exit, the
+badger came every night and rolled on them and struck them, as they will
+do when they suspect any human infernal machine. That he will remain
+for a week or two at a time without issuing from his "earth" is certain,
+but the most casual observer will see badger tracks in the snow in the
+severest weather, and I have never been able to find that there were no
+tracks in the snow issuing from the "earths" in winter for more than a
+week or two at a time. The badger is less active, eats less, goes fewer
+and shorter journeys in winter, and has a hibernating tendency; but the
+idea that the British species shuts himself up and takes to his bed
+through the winter months, and never comes forth till spring, is a
+fallacy.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3. Lower Jaw of Badger.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4. Dovetailed Jaws.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5. Skull of Badger--front view.]
+
+Having attempted a slight description of the badger as far as his
+exterior is concerned, I shall leave to "Dryasdust" the description and
+nomenclature of the badger's interior economy, as well as the
+enumeration, weights, and measurements of his bones and muscles. He
+possesses, however, one or two structural peculiarities that deserve a
+little attention. There is much similarity in the general conformation
+of the badger's and bear's skull, but the protecting ridge on the head
+is absent in the bear. What gives to the badger's jaw its proverbial and
+terrific force? To witness its work is to know that its power of biting,
+crushing, and holding must be the result of some peculiarly strong
+mechanical as well as muscular construction. The examination of the
+skull helps in the solution of the mystery. The conformation of the jaw
+is strong, and the muscles attached to it powerful; but besides this he
+has two distinguishing structural additions that give his jaws,
+furnished with his formidable teeth, the strength and retentive power of
+an iron vice. The first is that his lower jaws are locked into sockets
+in the skull, and are thereby made--unlike those of all other animals I
+know of--impossible of dislocation.[3] His head or skull, when stripped
+of flesh and bare, still retains the lower jaws in such a way that they
+cannot be displaced without fracturing the massive bones of the head or
+jaw. The teeth of a badger require respectful attention. There are
+eighteen teeth in the lower and sixteen in the upper jaw, in all
+thirty-four. The four big molars, two above and two below, are large and
+strong, the upper being much the larger and wider ones, the lower being
+longer and fitting within the upper, as do all the lower teeth. The four
+canines are large, thick, round, long and formidable, and are his chief
+weapons. The lower canines dovetail when the jaws close with the upper,
+but all the four points or ends turn outward and backward.
+
+    [3] The curved ridges of bone on the skull by which the lower
+        jaw is held in its place by gripping the condyle are more
+        or less well developed in most of the weasel family.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6. Skull--side view.]
+
+The second peculiarity arises from a high ridge of bone, standing
+straight up and running from the base of the skull to between the ears,
+giving a firm hold to the ligaments and tendons, and an additional
+leverage and length, which are again rendered more effective by passing
+over the high cheek-bones as over a pulley before reaching the jaws.
+There is a saying that "a badger never leaves go till he makes his teeth
+meet," and there is a foundation of truth in it. The length of time he
+will hold on to the limb of an enemy is certainly fearful, and the way
+in which his thick strong canines go through the bone. On one occasion,
+in Wales, a keeper residing near the place I was staying at thought he
+saw the badger's tail at the end of a badger-digging, and laid hold of
+it to draw him. He had made a terrible mistake, and had got hold of a
+hind-foot. The badger held him by the wrist for ten minutes with his arm
+stretched up the hole; when he let go his hold the hand was hanging by a
+few shreds, and had, of course, to be amputated. I have always drawn a
+badger when possible by the tail, as the use of the tongs is sometimes
+difficult, especially in certain holes and at great depths, and there is
+a liability for the tongs to give way, and then the badger charges in
+your face or through your legs. I have seen a badger's teeth break and
+fly off in chips from iron tongs, a sight and sound that is not
+pleasant. To one who knows how to do it, drawing by the tail is a
+simple, quiet, and effective way of "taking the brock."
+
+A badger has the proverbial nine lives that John Chinaman attributes to
+women and we to cats. You cannot kill a badger by a blow on the head,
+the structure is so dense. His brain is so well protected by the ridges
+of bone along his skull and over his eye-sockets, and by the strength
+and projection of his cheek-bones, as to make him all but invulnerable
+in that quarter. His skin is so thick and tough, and his coat so heavy
+and coarse, that shot will scarcely penetrate it; but he has one place
+as tender as a nigger's shins, and that is his nose, where, if he is
+struck once, he is instantly dispatched. I was witness of a scene in
+the hunting field with the Cleveland hounds during the mastership of the
+late Mr. Henry Turner Newcomen, which, however disgusting, illustrated
+the vitality of the badger. We thought we had run a fox to ground in a
+drain. The terriers were sent for, one was put in to bolt him, but after
+a quarter of an hour's attempt he came out, having given it up, with
+severe marks of punishment. One that could be depended on was then
+dispatched to ground, and digging operations commenced. As time went on
+we thought from the sound that it could not be a fox, and presently
+there was a charge down the drain, and a badger came bouncing and
+floundering out among the crowd of bystanders, the terrier holding on to
+him. The other terriers, barking furiously to join in the fray, excited
+the hounds in an adjoining field; they broke out past the whips, and
+nineteen couple were soon at the badger, who was entirely lost to view
+in the struggling and worrying mass. But he was plying his jaws all the
+time, as was evidenced by the howls of pain from the wounded hounds as
+they withdrew from this unaccustomed entertainment. The whips and others
+did their best to flog the hounds off, but this was not accomplished for
+at least ten minutes. After much bloodshed, and when the last hound had
+been choked off, the badger showed neither scratch nor wound, and looked
+as fresh as possible. Mr. Newcomen ordered a whip to despatch him and
+end the tragedy. The whip clubbed a weighted hunting-stock, striking him
+several smashing blows on the head, and left him apparently dead. A
+farmer having asked if he might have him to stuff, put him in a sack and
+carried him off. A few days later I met the farmer, Mr. R. Brunton, of
+Marton, and he told me that when he got home the badger was as lively as
+ever, so he put him on a collar and chain and fastened him to a kennel.
+The day following he thought, from the appearance of the badger, that he
+was hurt about the head, and with some difficulty examined him, and
+found that the lower jaw was injured. He thereupon got a revolver and
+fired a shot into his ear, and then he assured me the badger only shook
+his head. He was so taken aback that for a moment or two he thought of
+giving up the attempt to kill him, but firing a second ball into him
+behind the shoulder he put an end at once to the poor brute's
+sufferings.
+
+The badger, as I have said, is becoming very scarce in England, and is
+decreasing in numbers in France and other countries as well. There are,
+however, several English and Welsh counties where in woodlands he still
+is to be found in considerable numbers, and some districts where they
+are common enough. The badger is fairly plentiful in many parts of
+Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Hants, and Gloucestershire, along the
+Welsh border, and in Mid and South Wales. It is to be found also in
+Sussex, Wilts, occasionally in Surrey and Kent, and here and there
+through the Midland and home counties. It is becoming rare in the north
+of England, but still lingers in the North Riding of Yorkshire, chiefly
+in the districts of the hills and moors between Scarborough and York.
+In Lincolnshire it is to be found in places; it is extinct in Durham,
+and practically so in Northumberland, where within fifty years it was
+common enough.
+
+A Northumberland gamekeeper of my father's has told me he knew it in the
+Kyloe Craggs and the Howick Woods, and remembered his father taking him
+to see their dog tried at a badger near Belford. In none of these places
+are they to be found now. In my own district of Cleveland they were in
+1874 all but extinct. I remember as a boy two were caught in our
+neighbourhood, one in Kildale and one at Ayton; but in 1874 I had three
+young badgers sent me from Cornwall, dug out by one of my uncles, and
+these I turned out in my father's coverts, and secured for them the
+keeper's protection. Since then they have, with a few later
+introductions, held their own, and a few years ago I knew of nine badger
+"sets" in the vicinity, and some five on our own ground; but I regret
+that the hands of neighbours are against them.
+
+In Scotland the badger is now rare. In the north-eastern counties, where
+till recently he was to be met with in every wild woodland and forest
+district, he has entirely vanished. In Ross-shire and in the west he is
+occasionally found in places where the wild cat and marten are making
+their last stand against the keeper and his exterminating engine, the
+steel trap. In Ireland the badger is still found in the Wild West. I
+have come upon him in Connemara, near the Killery harbour, and have
+heard of him in Kerry and other counties.
+
+As to the distribution of the badger in Ireland I quote the following
+interesting letters from the _Field_:--
+
+"'Lepus Hibernicus' may be glad to know that the badger is still fairly
+common in the neighbourhood of Clonmel. The country people, who know
+them better under the name of 'earth-dogs,' in distinction to
+'water-dogs,' or otters, not unfrequently catch them in one way or
+another, and offer them for sale. Fortunately for the badger the demand
+is extremely limited."--Badger (Clonmel). "Permit me to coincide with
+'Lepus Hibernicus' respecting the plentifulness of the badger in
+Ireland. Some years since I was on a large estate in Co. Clare, and
+badgers were abundant on the domain and the adjoining property; I also
+found them numerous in the wilds of Galway. I have found and killed them
+in many parts of England and Wales, but have seen and trapped far more
+in the west of Ireland."--J. J. M. "Your correspondent, 'Lepus
+Hibernicus,' in the _Field_ of November 5, mentions that badgers are by
+no means uncommon in Ireland. I am in the west of Cornwall, and there
+are any amount here, a great deal too plentiful to please me, as I am
+sure they do a lot of harm to rabbits and game. I found the parts of a
+fowl in a field, evidently killed by a badger, as there was a trail not
+a foot away, and also a hole scratched, which could be the work of none
+other than a badger. I had two very big ones brought to me alive last
+week. They were caught by setting a noose of thin rope in their run. I
+should like to know a good way to exterminate them, as, though I shoot
+over a great deal of ground, I have never seen one out in daytime, but
+their trail is everywhere."--H. J. W. "The badger is by no means rare in
+the west of Clare, where I have trapped several."--A. H. G. "I beg to
+inform 'Lepus Hibernicus' that badgers are by no means scarce in this
+place."--A. R. Warren, Warren's Court, Lisarda, Cork. "The badger in
+this part of the Co. Cork is certainly not rare--Owen, Sheehy, Coosane,
+and Goulacullen mountains, with the adjoining ranges, afford shelter to
+a goodly number. Farm hands occasionally capture unwary ones, and offer
+them for sale as pets, or to test the mettle of the national terrier, or
+to be converted into bacon. A badger's ham is often seen suspended from
+the rafter of a farmer's kitchen."--J. Wagner (Dunmanway, Co. Cork).
+
+The counties in which I have had most acquaintance with the badger have
+been Radnorshire, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and
+Cornwall, but perhaps most of my experience has been gained in the
+last-named county, as far as digging for him is concerned; whilst it is
+at home in Cleveland that I have watched him for nearly twenty years,
+and gained some knowledge of his mode of life and habits. I am not sure
+whether there are not a few still left in the Cheviots and the districts
+of the Upper Tyne and Tweed. Up till about 1850 they were to be found on
+the Cleveland hills, or rather on their wooded sides and in the "gills."
+The last place where I heard of them being hunted was in the ravine and
+woods of Kilton.
+
+A badger's earth or warren is properly and generally called a "set" or
+"cete." They vary in respect of size, number of entrances, depth of
+galleries, and choice of site almost as much as rabbit-holes. Sometimes
+badgers will find sufficient room in rocks to make a home, and it is
+extraordinary the excavations they occasionally make in apparently solid
+rock. Usually, however, they select some softer material in which to
+make their underground passages and chambers. They will choose a quiet
+hillside away from man's habitation, amongst the whin bushes, or in the
+woods near a stream or small runner of water. Such a "set," if long
+established, will penetrate through earth, clay, and sub-soil, to some
+stratum of shale, or sand, or loose rock. Some of the galleries and
+chambers will be at a great distance from the surface, and some at an
+enormous depth. When a new earth is made I have always found the badger
+appropriate the holes of rabbits, and proceed to excavate, enlarge, and
+open them out. This operation of opening a new earth takes place
+constantly in the spring-time, great masses of material being thrown
+out; but as often as not the new house is abandoned before completed,
+and the subsequent labours of the family are devoted to repairing,
+enlarging, and making new front or back doors to the old place. In
+Cornwall I once tried my hand with my brother, some strong Cornishmen,
+and a team of terriers, at a very innocent-looking badger "set" situated
+in a level field. There were but three holes, and these not very far
+apart. The farmer told us that there had been badgers there all his
+life, and no one had ever been able to dig one out. This rather
+stimulated us than otherwise, and we had in the course of a few hours
+dug a trench some six feet deep, and were nearing the sounds of the
+subterranean conflict, which had been sustained by the terriers, when
+suddenly we found that we were above the sound, and we sank a shaft down
+three feet from the bottom of our trench, to find galleries and chambers
+in all directions. The battle had by this time moved, and we were in
+despair at the prospect of following on the level with a depth of nine
+feet of surface soil to be lifted in every direction we turned. I was
+listening at the bottom of the trench, having penetrated to the third
+storey of this underground barrack, when I distinctly heard the
+"bump-bump" of the badger below me. My companions came down and listened
+too, and there was not the slightest doubt that there was a fourth
+storey and labyrinth of passages some three or four feet below us, and
+for anything we knew another beyond. The day was far spent, the task was
+impossible, and the rest of our time was devoted to getting the
+terriers out, and making as good a retreat as we could before the
+victorious enemy.
+
+I should think this "set" was hundreds of years old, and some of the
+passages, the farmer told us, were a hundred yards long! As a rule a
+badger's hole descends rapidly at first, and then may branch into any
+number of by-ways and subterranean galleries. Whichever route you
+follow, however, you invariably come to a chamber or "oven," which is
+generally a sort of vaulted hall, where four ways meet, and which is, or
+has been, the living-room of the family at some previous time. Where
+there is an old-established "set" it is difficult to drive the badgers
+permanently away from it. They may leave it for a while from fancy, or
+because of disturbance, but they will certainly return.
+
+The badger and his wife have a regular spring cleaning after the winter
+is over, and about March and April a cart-load of winter bedding,
+rubbish, earth, and sweepings will be thrown in a few nights outside the
+front door. There is generally the old bedding left in one or two of
+the big chambers for the lady who is to be brought to bed in February,
+March, or April; and there is another turn-out after this interesting
+event has been accomplished. About the middle of June, in July and
+August, and as late as October and November, an extraordinary amount of
+fresh bedding will be taken in. On summer evenings I have watched the
+badgers at work, but regret that I cannot substantiate the following
+description:--"Badgers when they Earth, after by digging they have
+entred a good depth, for the clearing of the Earth out, one of them
+falleth on the back, and the other layeth Earth on the belly, and so
+taking his hinder feet in the mouth draweth the Belly-laden Badger out
+of the Hole or Cave; and having disburdened herself, re-enters and doth
+the like till all be finished."
+
+No, this is not how it is done, though it is a curious sight to see the
+real thing. The badger will come out, take a look round, and sit awhile
+close to the mouth of the hole. He will then shuffle about and get
+further from the hole. You will watch him descend into some
+bracken-covered hollow, and will see nothing more of him for awhile.
+Then you will hear him gently pushing and shoving and grunting, and know
+that he is very busy over something. He will reappear bumping along
+backwards, a heap of bracken and of grass or old straw, left from a
+pheasant feed, under his belly, and encircled by his arms and fore-feet.
+He will continue this most undignified and curious mode of retrogression
+to the earth, and will disappear tail first down his hole, still hugging
+and tugging at his burden.
+
+"It is very pleasant to behold them when they gather materials for their
+Couch, as straw, leaves, moss, and such-like; for with their Feet and
+their Head they will wrap as much together as a man will carry under his
+arm, and will make shift to get into their Cells and Couches" (_The
+Gentleman's Recreation_).
+
+I have not seen a badger make more than two such excursions by daylight,
+but have no doubt that after dark a considerable number of such
+journeys may be accomplished. For weeks together, on any morning, you
+may see the litter of bracken and grass strewing the way to his home and
+down the various entrances.
+
+And now let me again, with all possible respect, put some of our
+scientific friends right. It is not often that an amateur can; but a man
+who is not able to tell you everything, as these learned men do, about
+every living creature, may from a country life and experience be able to
+correct some errors in respect of one animal at least. M. Buffon, the
+immortal and wonderful natural historian, tells us that the badger is a
+solitary animal. This is the reverse of truth; he is less solitary than
+the fox. He is fond of company; he is monogamous, and clings closely and
+faithfully to his own wife. With badgers, as with the human race, the
+sexes are not precisely equal in numbers, and often, from the force of
+circumstances, a badger has to remain a celibate, but he is not a
+bachelor by choice. He may become a widower, but in either case he will
+travel far to seek a partner to share his shelter and his lot. It is not
+altogether rare to find an old solitary dog badger, who has loved and
+lost, or taken in late age to a hermit's cell; but he, as often as not,
+when he has failed to secure the companionship of the gentler sex, has
+found some other male to share his home, when they can live comfortably
+_en garçon_.
+
+Nor do the married pair shun the society of their kind. I have often
+seen large badger "sets" almost as full of badgers as a warren is of
+rabbits. One evening, near my house, I waited an hour of midge-plagued
+time to watch the badgers come out from a small "set," and was rewarded
+by seeing a procession of seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single
+hole, and I had them all in full view for something like twenty minutes.
+As this was in July they could hardly be one family. They were every one
+more than a year old, and a badger's family is usually two in number,
+sometimes three, and never more than four; and this last is exceedingly
+rare in my experience. In no sense, therefore, is the badger solitary.
+Indeed I have actually known myself several instances of a badger and
+fox living in apparent amity in the same earth, whilst I hardly ever saw
+a badger "earth" that was not either itself or the immediate vicinity
+tenanted by rabbits. As to the consistency of any friendship that exists
+between badgers and foxes and rabbits, I shall have more to say later
+on. I have, however, taken a badger and rabbit out of the same hole
+lying side by side. The badger is said to be the protector of the
+rabbit. He does not altogether deserve this title, and the rabbit enjoys
+the immunity in a badger's earth chiefly from the fact that the badger
+cannot follow it in the smaller holes without digging, an effort which
+in his estimation is, as a rule, not worth the candle.
+
+Buffon dwells on the cleanliness of the badger. He certainly is not the
+stinking animal he is accused of being. His house and himself are as a
+rule bright and cleanly looking, and it is only when in confinement,
+and deprived of the sanitary arrangements to which he is accustomed,
+that he becomes offensive. Writers are not correct in saying that he
+never deposits his dung in his earth, but as a rule he does not, and his
+habit is to go some little distance from his home, dig a hole, and there
+leave his excrement. He will use the same hole for a few days, and then
+cover it up with earth and make a new one. There is a smell about a
+badger "earth," but it is not disagreeable, and nothing like so rank and
+strong as that of a fox's. He is, however, often troubled with lice and
+ticks, so that it is desirable when your dogs have been to ground
+carefully to wash them. But in this respect a badger is not worse than
+sheep and goats, and with such a coat as he has it is no wonder that it
+is sometimes tenanted. The same distinguished authority states that the
+badger produces its young in summer, but I have never known this happen.
+March is the usual month, and the rule is not earlier than February nor
+later than April. A naturalist at Cambridge told me that he knew of a
+badger bitch that was many months in confinement (I think he said
+eighteen months), and gave birth to cubs--but I was not convinced of the
+accuracy of his statement that she had never had access to one of her
+kind. It is only fair to mention that Vyner, in his _Notitia Venatica_,
+states that "It is a fact perhaps not generally known, nevertheless
+curious, that badgers go twelve months with young. This fact I _learned
+from a neighbour of mine in Warwickshire_, who some years ago dug out in
+the spring a sow badger. She was confined in an outhouse for twelve
+months, at about which period she produced one young one. During her
+confinement it was impossible for her to have been visited by a male."
+
+That an animal of this size should go with young for such a period is so
+extraordinary, and so great an exception to the ordinary provisions of
+nature, that the theory requires much greater support than mere hearsay
+evidence. If it were a fact, or if it were the rule, the evidence to
+support the theory of twelve months' gestation should be overwhelming,
+considering the number of badgers that are in confinement. I have had
+many in confinement for long periods, and have never known them to give
+any evidence in support of this theory. I have kept a pair for a long
+period, but, like many other wild animals in confinement, they never
+bred. All sorts of theories exist as to the period of gestation in
+badgers, but I think I shall be very near the mark when I say that they
+go with young about nine weeks, and I conceive that the mistake made by
+those who have thought that they go over a year is due to the fact,
+which I have noticed, that a pair of badgers do not breed every year. I
+cannot decide whether there is any precise rule, but am inclined to
+think that they breed once every two years. There are so many accounts
+of single badgers kept in confinement bringing forth young after a much
+longer period of gestation that it appears possible that the female has
+the power known to be possessed by the Roe-deer doe of postponing the
+operation of parturition for a considerable time.
+
+The badger is not by nature a ferocious animal, though the female will
+repel with the greatest savagery any approach when she has young, but so
+will a hen with chickens. The temperament of the badger is a gentle,
+shrinking one. No animal prefers a more quiet life, loving a warm bed in
+a dry dark corner of earth or rocks. He loves to sleep and meditate in
+peace for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. He lies not far
+within his entrance hall during the spring and summer, and on a hot day
+he will sometimes come to the mouth of his hole. In the evening, in June
+or July, he will come outside, sit looking into the wood or shuffle
+round the bushes, stretch himself against the tree-stems, or have a
+clumsy romp with his wife and little ones; and when the daylight dies he
+will hurry off, rushing through the covert for his nightly ramble. In
+the summer months he will travel as far as six miles from home, but he
+is in bed again an hour before sunrise.
+
+It is only at this time of the year that he can be hunted above ground.
+This can be done with a few beagles or harriers on a moonlight night,
+when, finding him in the open, they will give a merry chase and fine
+cry, and a run of several miles without a check. If his earths are
+stopped, and he finds no other refuge, he will be brought to bay. In
+some districts I have known sacks put into the mouths of the most used
+holes of a set, the open end of each sack having a running noose pegged
+into the ground, thus providing an astonishing reception on his return
+as he charges in, disturbed or pursued in his midnight ramble. By this
+means he is taken alive and unhurt, being bagged and secured in his
+attempt to enter. At other times of the year, when the days are short
+and the nights longer, he comes out later in the evening, waits for a
+moment at the mouth of his earth, takes a preliminary sniff round, and
+then rushes off at the top speed into the covert.
+
+The badger is easily domesticated if brought up by hand, and proves an
+interesting and charming companion. I had at one time two that I could
+do anything with, and which followed me so closely that they would bump
+against my boots each step I took, and come and snuggle in under my coat
+when I sat down. I was very much attached to them, but having to leave
+for the London season, I came home after a prolonged absence to find
+that they had reverted to their natural disposition, and had forgotten
+him who had been a foster-parent to them. As I could not fondle them
+without a pair of hedging-gloves on, and they no longer walked at my
+heel, I made them a home in the woods, where the thought of their
+happiness has helped me to bear my loss.
+
+Many interesting stories are told of tame badgers. Here is one taken
+from the _Field_: "A few months ago, a farmer in the Cotswolds unearthed
+a badger and one youngster about two months old, which were sent to Mr.
+Barry Burge, Northleach, who only kept the former a few weeks, when she
+died. The orphan was petted very much by its owner. In a short time it
+would follow Mr. Burge through the fields and streets, and answer to
+the call like a dog. It is an amusing sight to see the badger along with
+its master riding a bicycle. A short time ago Mr. Burge had a fox cub,
+which he has succeeded in taming. This fox has taken a great fancy to an
+Irish terrier, with which she plays continually. The badger, which is
+now about seven months old, is loose about the house at times, but
+generally spends most of its time in company with the fox, to which it
+is greatly attached, all sleeping snugly together."--G. W. Duckett,
+Northleach, R.S.O., Gloucestershire.
+
+M. le Masson gives a pretty account of his tame badger, which, though it
+loses much in translation, I give in English. "I brought up and kept for
+more than two years a female badger, which died at last from obesity.
+She had been taken from her mother when only eight days old and suckled
+by a Normandy bitch, which had already reared me some wolf whelps.
+'Grisette,' as she was named, was, like all her kind, omnivorous; meat,
+beetles, fruits, certain kinds of vegetables, in fact, all and
+everything was welcome to her healthy appetite. When out walking in the
+country, where she always readily followed me, she would unearth rats,
+moles, and young rabbits, which she could scent at the bottom of their
+holes. In spite of her thorough domesticity, I never succeeded in
+overcoming her antipathy to dogs, and more especially to cats, which she
+chased most viciously did they dare to enter the kitchen where she
+reigned as queen; and where, such was her sensitiveness to cold, she had
+made her bed against the wall in the chimney corner. Here in winter,
+buried in her furs, she slept curled up for whole days together. But
+which of us is without a fault? A little greedy without being actually
+voracious, sweet Grisette sometimes ventured on to the stone-work of the
+cooking-stove, and from there was able to discover from which of the
+saucepans was exhaled the most savoury odour, and never did she make a
+mistake on that score!"
+
+Du Fouilloux states in his _Venerie_:--"Je ay veu aux blereaux prendre
+deuant moy les petis cochons de laict, lesquelz ilz tray-noient tout
+vifz en leur terrier. C'est vne chose certaine qu'ilz en sont plus
+friandz que de toutes autres chairs: car si on passe vn carnage de
+porceau par dessus leurs terriers, ilz ne faudront iamais de sorter pour
+y aller."
+
+The badger is credited with a special love for pork. I have seen a
+statement in an old volume of the _Gentleman's Recreation_, in which the
+writer refers to the taste of the badger for pork. "They love
+Hog's-flesh above any other; for take but a piece of Pork and train it
+over a badger's Burrow, if he be within, you shall quickly see him
+appear without."
+
+Badgers are omnivorous. In their wild state their food is principally
+roots and insects--they are especially fond of beetles and such
+creatures as are to be found just below the surface of the ground, or
+under the decaying dung of cattle. The natural history books say they
+eat frogs. This may be true, but I have not observed it. I have tried
+badgers in confinement with all sorts of insects and grubs, but I never
+could get them to touch slugs or worms. They are carnivorous, and eat
+mice, rats, voles, and moles. They will take a rabbit out of a trap,
+turn it inside out, and eat all the meat, leaving the skin behind,
+turned neatly with the fur inside. They are also fond of very young
+rabbits, and will dig a shaft through several feet of solid earth direct
+on to the nest. But when this has been stated, nearly all has been said
+with regard to their propensity to damage in game coverts. I am
+supported by other observers in this opinion; for instance, a recent
+writer in the _Field_ who says:--"In reply to E. T. D'Egmont's inquiry
+about catching badgers, I have never found them do much harm to the
+nests of winged game; but they are death on rabbits, and much resemble a
+fox in finding a young one appetizing. Their skins would make good
+waistcoats, but, apart from that, I would not destroy them upon any
+property of my own, because they do so much more good than harm in
+divers ways. We have a small property in my family, where foxes and
+badgers lie up together in close proximity to a rabbit warren, upon the
+inhabitants of which they feed. It is a spot practically unknown to the
+outward gaze of man, as it is difficult of access; and I should fancy
+that any one attempting to attack their stronghold would meet with a
+stubborn resistance. Badgers mostly go seeking for food during the
+night-time. Where they abound, one occasionally meets them walking
+quietly along a path, with their snout low down, and occasionally giving
+a kind of grunt like a mongoose. They are very fond of honey. A bag
+pegged back over the entrance to their holes is a good way of catching
+them."
+
+They do not hunt for rabbits or game like a fox or cat, and though there
+are undoubtedly instances of their taking partridge and pheasant eggs,
+in my experience I have never known it done by those around me, nor from
+other places where they have ample opportunity of doing so. I have known
+a pheasant rear a young brood on an earth tenanted by badgers; but,
+curiously enough, I have known a similar case on a fox's earth,
+containing a vixen and cubs, and I cannot defend the general character
+of a fox in regard to game. Still it may be taken that a badger, though
+occasionally eating rabbits and rarely eggs, does not hunt for game,
+ground or feathered, or do a hundredth part of the damage done by a fox
+or a cat. There have always been more rabbits, hares, and pheasants in a
+hollow near my house, where there is a large colony of badgers, than in
+any other part of the coverts. The badger has a special weakness for
+wild honey, and the grubs of wasps and humble bees. The wildest and most
+unconciliatory badgers I have ever had in confinement would come out and
+eat a wasp's nest, and they will hunt every bank and hedgerow in July
+and August, routing out every wasp's and hornet's nest in the
+country-side. A keeper told me that upon one occasion, when he was
+walking along the covert edges in summer-time about nine o'clock in the
+evening, his attention was arrested by a curious chapping, champing
+noise, and looking over the fence he saw an old badger with his head in
+a huge wasp's nest hanging in a bramble bush, and he was crunching up
+and eating with the greatest gusto the wasps and grubs, quite undeterred
+by the thousand angry insects that covered his head and body. In truth,
+I must admit that while he is thus useful, he has been known to enter a
+garden and upset the hives and purloin the honey, being as fond of it as
+his larger cousins, the bears.
+
+I must also bring another charge against him. Let me introduce this
+painful subject by giving the following correspondence from the _Field_
+newspaper:--
+
+"Wilfred writes--'I shall be obliged if you will allow me to ask your
+readers whether they have known old badgers to kill fox cubs. Last year
+our M.F.H. gave a neighbouring keeper a litter of cubs. He put them into
+a natural empty fox-earth, and kept them shut in until they had got
+fairly on their feed, and were quite at home. When he opened the earth,
+and allowed them to come out, they played about, and all went well for
+two or three days, when he found one at a little distance from the mouth
+of the earth dead, with its skull smashed in, and very much bitten
+about the head and neck. He lost the lot in the same way in a few days.
+He thought an old badger or fox killed his cubs. About this time I got
+five cubs, and put them into an empty artificial fox-earth. All went
+well with them for some time after they played out, when the keeper
+reported finding one about twenty yards from the earth dead, and killed
+after the same fashion as my neighbour's cubs, and I too lost mine. In
+the same artificial earth I had a natural litter this season, and the
+cubs played out well; but on the keeper telling me he did not think they
+were there now, I went to examine the earth, found the foxes gone, and
+the earth occupied by an old badger. I had a litter of fox cubs in the
+deer park here, where I live, and all went well with them until ten days
+ago, when one was picked up dead, killed in the same manner as those
+last year, and another was found dead yesterday. I feel quite certain
+myself that they were killed by an old badger or an old fox, for I am
+sure if killed by dogs they would not smash the skull and neck. I shall
+be glad if any one can enlighten me on this subject.'"
+
+In reply to "Wilfred" there were several letters, among which were the
+following:--
+
+    "Sir,--Undoubtedly; every one that they can get near, and more
+    especially hand-reared cubs that have not got the old foxes to
+    protect them. I was first told this by old Jem Hills, the
+    well-known huntsman of the Heythrop, in his latter years; and
+    subsequently I had positive proof of what he said. On one
+    occasion a man brought a fine half-grown cub to my house which
+    he had picked up dead in the road he came along. It was bitten
+    most severely through and behind the shoulder, and I at once
+    remarked to a friend that was with me, 'That is the work of a
+    badger.' On going down to an earth where I knew there was a
+    natural litter, we found tracks of a badger all about the place,
+    as if he had been hunting the cubs. Having at the time eight
+    cubs that I was hand-rearing in an artificial drain, I thought
+    it was high time to look after them, for though regularly fed,
+    I did not always watch to see whether they all came to feed.
+    However, I did so that evening, and only two came, and these
+    looked very wild and scared. I then searched the plantation, and
+    picked up four of my cubs killed quite recently, and bitten in
+    the same savage way. A few weeks after we killed a big boar
+    badger in the drain. Several years later, I was again rearing
+    some hand-bred cubs, and everything went well until they were a
+    good size, when one morning I found one of them killed,
+    evidently by a badger; and I eventually took four more of them,
+    and the others were all driven away. This badger beat me for
+    some little time, but I got him at last. Though old badgers and
+    foxes are often found in the same earth, more frequently when
+    one of the latter has been run to ground by hounds, yet, as a
+    rule, they give each other wide berths. If your correspondent
+    'Wilfred' wishes to save his cubs, let him kill every badger as
+    soon as possible."
+
+    "Sir,--Replying to 'Wilfred's' question, 'Do badgers kill fox
+    cubs?' I cannot say they do, because there are no badgers in
+    this district; but having at different times had young foxes
+    killed in the way he describes, namely, bitten in the head, I
+    can assure him that it is done by an old dog fox. Should he wish
+    for further information, I refer him to Mr. John Douglas, Royal
+    Hotel, Pudding Chare, Newcastle-on-Tyne, who will tell him of
+    the experience he gained when at Clumber, under the Duke of
+    Newcastle."
+
+    "Sir,--I may tell 'Wilfred' that I have never known old badgers
+    kill fox cubs, though I have studied the habits of both for
+    nearly forty years. No doubt an old vixen, with no cubs of her
+    own, killed his; the dog fox will not do this. Indeed, he will
+    cater for all the cubs of his own get, but a strange vixen is
+    very apt to kill any cubs which have no mother of their own. I
+    have known a terrier bitch kill a litter of foxhound puppies,
+    and one of my Irish terriers will kill puppies if she has the
+    chance. As to the 'natural' litter which 'Wilfred' found gone,
+    they had merely been shifted by the vixen; as soon as the cubs
+    get able to travel they are always shifted. Last year I had two
+    tame wild ducks sitting in a hedge. A badger passed regularly
+    within a yard of them every night, but they were undisturbed.
+    This year a fox took one of them just before it hatched. I was
+    sorry to read the other day in the _Field_ an account of two old
+    and four cub badgers having been dug out in Gloucestershire.
+    There is surely no sport in this, and the badgers are destitute
+    of grease now, whereas at Michaelmas they are fat enough to
+    provide grease for all the rheumatic people in the parish. I
+    like to catch one with my terriers when the harvest moon shines.
+    Sometimes I get up in a convenient tree near the earth and watch
+    the badgers feeding on the crazy roots. How fond they are of the
+    wild bees' honey, and also of wasps' nests. Let me advise
+    'Wilfred' to read the exhaustive and interesting account given
+    in a letter to the _Times_ (October 24, 1877), and quoted in
+    _Cassell's Natural History_, vol. ii. It thus concludes--'The
+    badgers and the foxes are not unfriendly, and last spring a
+    litter of cubs was brought forth very near the badgers; but
+    their mother removed them after they had grown familiar, as she
+    probably thought they were showing themselves more than was
+    prudent.' Mr. Ellis of Loughborough was the author of the
+    letter, and he had rare opportunities of studying the habits of
+    badgers."
+
+I am loth to do it, but wishing to be an impartial historian, am
+compelled to state that the badger is capable of vulpicide. As a rule he
+can put up with an occasional lodger of the fox family, and live happily
+with him, and from his superior qualities as an architect of
+subterranean dwellings, he is on the whole an encourager of foxes. He
+often gives up his spacious apartments to a vixen in the spring, and
+submits to eviction. A fox will often take possession of a badger's
+earth, new or old; and in order to persuade foxes to take to a
+particular covert, no surer method can be pursued than to get badgers to
+make earths when they are required. But even a badger's patience can be
+exhausted, as the following history of my own experience will show. I
+would premise, however, that I do not credit the oft-repeated story that
+the fox gets rid of the badger by leaving his evacuations in the
+badger's earth. Being the less and weaker animal, all a fox does is
+allowed on sufferance. My suspicions of a badger's capability to wage
+war on foxes were first aroused some years ago. The badgers had made a
+fine double set of earths on the north side, of a hill in a neighbouring
+larch wood, where no effort on my part to get foxes to breed and stay
+had succeeded. No sooner, however, was a colony of badgers established
+than foxes haunted the holes and covert. In a succession of years there
+was as certain to be a litter of fox cubs in the badger earth as a
+sunrise on the morrow.
+
+What happened each spring was that the foxes and badgers frequented both
+sets indiscriminately till about March. When the vixen lay in the
+badgers abandoned the set of holes where she was, and restricted
+themselves to the other set some twenty yards distant. Year after year
+the fox cubs prospered and grew up, till one summer the keeper found a
+fox cub in a field with his head bitten in two and terribly worried. I
+did not know how to account for it. I watched the vixen and the other
+cubs one evening to see that they were all right, and saw them, but
+found they had left the earth and were in the covert. For two years all
+went well and the foxes were unmolested, and then occurred something
+that gave me a clue to the death of the cub three years before. Two
+vixens lay in at the badgers' earth, and brought up their families of
+seven and four respectively, till they were about one-third grown. There
+were then to my knowledge at least four badgers and twelve foxes in
+these two earths. On one or two occasions the stillness of the night was
+broken by the veriest pandemonium at the earth, but still I did not
+think much of it. At the end of the hunting season, at the end of April,
+when the cubs were seven or eight weeks old, and a fortnight after the
+hounds had been through the coverts, I found the largest and finest of
+the vixens dead, and thought that, in spite of the earths being open,
+she must have been chopped by the hounds. A post-mortem examination, as
+well as the improbability of a vixen with cubs being out in the early
+part of the day, convinced me that she had not been killed by hounds.
+She seemed to have been badly bitten through the legs and thighs but not
+on the body. From this time the other vixen and all the cubs left the
+badgers' earths and remained in the covert. It was on this occasion that
+an attempt to find out how many badgers there were in these earths was
+rewarded by seeing seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single hole.
+It was rough, no doubt, that the badgers should be invaded by two large
+families of smelling foxes, and no doubt their patience had become
+exhausted. Still I could not tolerate this kind of behaviour, and so I
+had a dig at them, took two old ones out, and transported them to
+Scotland. The following year there was peace and fox cubs again. The
+year after, however, the vixen and her cubs took off into the covert
+very early after another bit of Bank Holiday business, at a time of
+night when all respectable people were quietly in bed. And yet all
+through the year foxes are in the earth, and this spring, as heretofore,
+a litter of cubs has been raised, but removed to another earth at a safe
+distance from the badgers. I have never heard of badgers taking the
+offensive against foxes; they will never molest a fox or vixen unless
+their earth is invaded, and in my case if I had had no badgers in this
+covert I should have had no foxes; and whilst it is annoying that the
+fox cubs and vixen should be driven out, and perhaps occasionally
+killed, the drawback is slight when it is considered that as long as
+there are badgers there will be a litter of cubs, which nine times out
+of ten will get safely off.
+
+There are every now and then albino badgers reported, but I have never
+seen one alive. I think, however, they are more subject to albinism than
+most animals. I do not know of a case of melanism.
+
+"_White Badger at Overton, Hants._--While digging for badgers on April
+30, we came across two dog badgers in the same earth, one of which was
+quite white, the colour of a white ferret, with pink eyes.
+Unfortunately, the terriers punished him so much he had to be destroyed.
+I have helped to dig out a great many of these animals, but never saw
+nor heard of a white one before."--T. P.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+There are several methods by which the badger can be taken alive, or
+killed, with ease. I am familiar with several successful ways of
+trapping him. The reader, if he is not aware of these, must not expect
+me to enlighten him, as my object in writing is to arouse an interest in
+his preservation, not to facilitate his destruction. It may be as well
+to state, however, that the inhuman engine, the steel trap (by which so
+many of the birds and beasts that frequented the wild woods of England
+and Scotland have been exterminated) is an instrument that arouses the
+suspicion of a badger at once, and he is as clever in avoiding it as an
+old-fashioned rat. The badger if caught in a steel trap will frequently
+bite his leg or foot clean off. In my opinion there are two legitimate
+methods of hunting the badger. First, that of a straight-forward attack
+on his fortress; and should it be an old-established earth, it may be
+the end of the longest day will not see the battle ended. There are, of
+course, the fortunes of war--a lucky engagement, a wrong turn on the
+part of the defender, a successful trench quickly cutting off his
+retreat--which may deliver him unexpectedly into your hands; or the
+enemy may outwit you altogether, conducting a masterful retreat, with
+gallant sorties on the dogs, and by continually changing his front drive
+you to abandon works, trenches, and operations that have cost great
+labour and time; thus you may be left with a tired and wounded pack of
+terriers, exhausted sappers, and the badger, having blocked and
+barricaded his retreat with soil, stones, and sand, is lost. The war
+thus made is an equal one: you attack him on his own ground in his
+fortress where he is acquainted with every passage, gallery, and
+casement; he is armed to the teeth and armour-plated, and can drive a
+road forward, downward, or upward with extraordinary rapidity. It is
+true you may have many terriers, but he has an advantage over your
+forces. Only one of your dogs can engage at a time, and the badger has
+the advantage of weight, size, knowledge of the ground, and familiarity
+with the dark--in fact, in every respect except those of courage and
+endurance, which in some terriers may equal his own. The other method,
+less sure, depends on taking the badger off his guard, and is more in
+the character of an ambuscade under cover of night. When the badgers are
+away from home you block up their earths, placing sacks with running
+nooses in the mouth, in the most frequented holes. Station one of your
+party near the "set," and you may either take a small pack of hounds and
+draw the country for a few miles round, and hunt him like a fox, getting
+a run across country and a fine cry; or you may beat the neighbouring
+coverts with men and dogs of any description that are trained to hunt
+the badger.
+
+In the following, taken from an article which appeared in a newspaper,
+there is a good account of night hunting.
+
+"Owing to his shy and retiring habits, rather than to the scarcity of
+the animal, probably less is known about the badger than about any wild
+animal left in England at the present time. There is a prevalent notion
+that the badger is exceedingly rare, and also that he is harmless;
+neither of these ideas is quite correct. In the west especially the
+badger is fairly common, but escapes notice owing to his retiring
+disposition. Whether he does harm to feathered game or not is a moot
+point, but his tracks have been distinctly noticed round plundered
+nests; it is certain, however, that he does great damage to ground game
+by digging out 'stops' of young rabbits in the spring and summer.
+
+"When hunted after the fashion generally adopted in the west, he affords
+excellent sport to those who are prepared to face a long tramp and the
+loss of some of their night's rest. The prosaic way of digging them out
+of the earth involves much labour, and has in it no element of sport;
+while attempting to catch badgers in traps is about as feasible as
+trying to catch birds by putting salt on their tails. Driving them into
+sacks fixed in the earth is unsatisfactory, as a good game dog is
+necessary to press the badger hard, or he will turn from the earth and
+seek shelter elsewhere; while, if you have a good dog, the sacks are
+unnecessary except for the reception of the badger when caught by the
+dog.
+
+"The paraphernalia of the chase are simple, namely, a good dog, a pair
+of badger-tongs, and a sack. A really good dog is very difficult to
+obtain; the favourite kind is a cross-bred bull-terrier, about forty
+pounds in weight; pure-bred bull-terriers, for some reason or other, do
+not seem to give satisfaction. The 'tongs' have wooden handles, and iron
+heads with blunt teeth for grasping the badger when held by the dog. For
+a successful hunt it is necessary to observe which way the badger
+travels from the earth. A favourite spot is the slope of a hill, or
+high-lying fields, where they may be easily tracked by the 'roots,'
+_i.e._ small holes which they scratch in the ground in search of
+beetles and roots of various kinds. They rarely descend into low-lying
+meadows, except to drink. Choose a starlight night with a slight breeze
+blowing, and approach the earth up the wind. Do not hurry your dog; if
+he knows his work, he will range freely, but he often takes a long time
+to puzzle out the track. If you miss him, go on slowly in the direction
+in which you last saw him, often stopping to listen.
+
+"'What was that?' The dry sticks crack in a hedge far below you. 'Hark!
+two sharp eager barks; what does it mean?' Why, that Grip is wheeling
+out in a half-circle to gain slightly on the badger, and then to dash in
+and get him by the head. Run now as you never ran before. Head over
+heels into a ditch; never mind, up and on again--the best dog can't hold
+a badger for ever. There they are out in the open, Grip with a tight
+hold of the badger by the side of the head, with his legs tucked back
+out of harm's way. Grasp him with the tongs as near the neck as
+possible. Take off the dog, some one. Hold the bag. Hoist our
+grey-coated friend into the air, and lower him into the sack; he weighs
+at least thirty pounds. The dog is hardly marked, and you haven't torn
+more than three rents in your nether garments getting through that last
+thorn hedge. Altogether, every one agrees that it was a satisfactory
+little run.
+
+"The old English sheep-dog I have known do well for the other method.
+The badger when pursued makes straight for home, blunders headlong into
+the hole, only to find that his efforts to get in are closing the mouth
+of the sack, that retreat or fighting are alike in vain, and that he is
+an imprisoned bagman, without having struck a blow in self-defence. It
+is not uncommon for a badger thus pursued to stand at bay, when a good
+dog may keep him in play, or hold on, till you come up and secure him.
+No doubt there is amusement and excitement in this moonlight chase, and
+to some it is preferable to the arduous labour with pick, spade, axe,
+and terrier."
+
+To my mind, however, there is something more interesting and exciting in
+the long-sustained conflict and labour of the latter, for which you
+require perseverance, wit, patience, and courage on the part of man and
+terrier. The courage and endurance that a good terrier will display when
+need requires before such a foe, will fill his owner's heart with joy
+and pride. A good terrier is a veritable treasure; the price of a sure,
+game, and determined one is far above rubies. Picture what it means for
+a small terrier to enter into the bowels of the earth to find, to cope
+with, and for long hours in dust and darkness in the tortuous maze to
+keep up an unequal fight with an enormously superior foe, whose grunts
+and clattering teeth add terror to his charges down the echoing ways.
+Yet I have had not a few that, hour after hour, on their backs or their
+sides, would lie up to a badger, keeping him cornered, and continuously
+give tongue with no voice to direct them. Should the badger charge, such
+a terrier would rather die than let him leave the corner to which he has
+been driven, and will return fighting and facing his huge opponent,
+driving him inch by inch into the _cul de sac_, caring neither for bite
+nor wounds, and making noise enough to let you know where the battle
+rages. It is no part of his duty to tackle the badger. A good terrier
+knows this, and will only resort to his teeth should the badger attempt
+to force a passage. If it comes to close quarters, such a terrier will
+draw back his fore-legs under his body, take the attack full in the
+face, and trust to seizing the badger by the neck. A badger when
+attacked generally bites upwards, _i. e._ he lowers his head and turns
+the back of his head downwards. Nothing makes the heart beat faster
+than, with head to the earth, to hear the din of this subterranean
+warfare carried along the dark galleries to the day. You have sent in
+one of your best terriers; he has tried by cajolery and caresses, by
+cries, by straining at his chain to be allowed the honourable
+distinction of first blood. You have dispatched him with your blessing,
+and he has quickly and silently started on his journey into the unknown.
+You listen to him forcing his passage, drawing himself round corners,
+scratching away some accumulation or fall from the roof, and hear his
+eager panting as he winds his foe. Presently you hear a low sharp bark,
+then another, then two or three more, next a bumping, thumping noise; it
+is the badger, who has waited to see who the intruder is, and, rousing
+himself, is retreating. The terrier barks no more, but you can hear the
+thump-thump of the badger, followed by the efforts of the dog to keep up
+with him. They are now a long way in, and you can plainly hear the bark
+again. Soon the fight draws nearer, and the terrier's cry comes to your
+ear with regularity and clearness; but the badger is only disputing the
+way, he has not yet been driven with his back against the wall. The
+terrier redoubles his activity, you can hear him feinting at the badger,
+sharp give-and-take, but no foolish attempt to lay hold. After ten
+minutes the badger again retreats, probably up the hill, and you have to
+listen on the surface or at the higher holes of the set till you can
+hear them again. At last you catch a faint sound, they are still moving,
+now stationary, now further on; then they seem to stay in one place.
+There is the steady yap-yap-yap of the dog just distinguishable to the
+ear.
+
+Quick, every hand to work. A trench six feet deep, or deeper if
+necessary, must be cut across the set to cut off the badger from the
+passages. With pick, spade, and shovel the work goes on, while some one
+listens to know whether the scene of battle moves. If it does, the
+badger may have found a side gallery, and gone far enough, or he may
+have charged the dog. He may have passed by a different road beneath
+your feet in the trench; but if the terrier has succeeded in keeping him
+face to face and engaged, yet not driving him so hard as to make him
+charge, you may be successful in an hour or two, and find that your
+cutting intersects the passage in which the badger and the terrier are
+engaged. If the badger suspects you are cutting off his only means of
+escape he will charge and fight, and the terrier will sometimes be
+unable to back fast enough; then there will be a meeting of teeth and
+jaws, the badger holding the dog through the head, jaw, or nose. The
+dog's smothered cries of anger and pain make you strain every nerve to
+get to his relief.
+
+When the badger at last leaves go, the terrier's turn comes, and now
+with blood up he drives back the badger to his end of the hole with
+every determination to keep him there. After two or three turns like
+this, if the dog has been in an hour or two, he will probably come out
+for a breath of air for a moment. He should be immediately taken,
+fastened up, watered, and kept in reserve for future contingencies, and
+the best terrier for sticking up be sent in with the utmost haste. If a
+minute has been spent in doing this, every moment will have been used by
+the badger in barricading the passage against the dog and burying
+himself. This once accomplished, you may as well whistle for your badger
+as continue digging, for he may have got down into some other gallery,
+or have buried himself so that neither dog nor man can find him. Of one
+thing you may be sure, that whilst you are speculating what has become
+of him, he is digging at a prodigious rate, or has already made his
+escape by some secret stair.
+
+If, however, you are quick, terrier number two has interrupted master
+badger as he is at work and lets you know. "It's all right," "Come on,"
+"He's here," "I've got him," "He's got me," "You beast," "Get back,"
+"I'll hold him," and spade and shovel and pick are hard at work again.
+Backs and arms are aching with lifting at high pressure out of the deep
+trench. You dig on, blocking the hole as the roof falls in, but every
+now and then the shovels clear it for a moment to give the dog air. And
+now the game has shown itself. A terrible charge down the hole sends out
+the terrier; and the badger, seeing the men at work, backs again,
+followed by the dog. Now all is excitement. Every snap, haunch, grunt,
+groan, and yell in the fight is heard. A favourite's life in the
+balance! The prize in view! The other terriers are tugging at their
+chains, frantic to join the fray, yelling fit to split their throats. It
+is maddening for them to see the dust and commotion in the trench, to
+hear the sound of battle so near, to wind the enemy, to hear the cry of
+their fighting and perhaps wounded companion, and not to be allowed to
+share in the glory of the final action. Now is the time if you have a
+terrier to enter to see what he is made of, but there is no time to
+waste on education. You are close up to the badger, he cannot be an
+arm's-length off. Draw your dog, the badger will then turn his tail to
+you to dig, or he will charge out. Be ready with the tongs, and a good
+dog in case he charges. But if he turns tail get hold of it with a good
+grip. A long pull and a steady pull will draw him out, bouncing,
+lunging, and snapping. Now, boys, ready with the sack! Dogs off. All
+want steady nerves now; three hands on the sack mouth to keep it open,
+and take care of your fingers! A twirl round and a quick plunge, and the
+badger is in the bag. Don't let go his tail till you have slipped the
+cord on his hind-leg, and made the other end of the cord fast to the bag
+mouth and to a tree. I have seen a badger go through a sack like a
+bullet through paper, and it is well to make all as safe as possible.
+
+M. Edmond le Masson, in his book on hunting fox and badger, severely
+deprecates tailing a badger. He denounces the danger and folly of it,
+and gives an amusing account of his falling into a trench at the
+critical moment as follows:--
+
+"One fine day, or rather one cursed day, when I was sweating blood and
+water to get a monster badger out of his earth, a venerable patriarch,
+white with years, who resisted my aching tired arms and weary back with
+all his strength, the earth gave way and I fell back, rolling over with
+the animal, and there I was at the bottom of the abyss in a veritable
+pandemonium. Bruised and breathless, I was conscious enough to know that
+I was in very bad company, with four more badgers, a furious mother and
+three young ones, and not so young either but that one of them was able
+to tear from me a large piece of the most indispensable part of my
+attire, which placed me in a position of cruel embarrassment, and
+obliged me to wait till the shades of night enabled me to get home with
+decency. The most humiliating part of the adventure was that all these
+cursed brutes, father, mother, and children, made the most insolent
+retreat over my stomach to escape from their earth, and then took off
+straight across country and escaped. From this moment I have felt a
+ferocious malice against all badgers, whether big, middling, or little,
+and I never go down into the trench now without having a Lefaucheux
+revolver and a Devisme revolver, a long dagger knife, and a sharp Toledo
+colichemarde!"
+
+But let not ingenuous youth think that to enjoy the sport all he has to
+do is to take a spade and any reputable terrier. He might as well try,
+like Dame Partington, to stop the rising tide with a mop! Before so
+serious an enterprise as a badger digging be undertaken, the wise man
+will see to it that all the materials are ready, and let him be sure
+that he has the first necessity--the stout heart to go through with a
+tough job when once started. I have, with my brother, Mr. J. A. Pease,
+started at 7.30a.m. from home, worked a summer's day with a slight
+refreshment at one, handled pick and shovel and spade, fought the
+terriers, and gone on through the afternoon, evening, and a black wet
+night, without even a drop of water to slake our parched throats,
+deserted by all but one faithful workman, and on till the grey dawn of
+another day, which found us as weary, wet, and wounded, and as
+disreputable a looking company of three men and four terriers as ever
+survived a bloody action. At five o'clock we secured a splendid pair of
+badgers, which we bore home on aching backs, followed by our gallant
+little team of draggled and dirty terriers. On another occasion, it took
+my brother and myself, some ten labourers and keepers, and nine
+terriers, from 10 till 5.30 to take an old 30-lb. dog badger, in an
+earth which had only one hole, and where it was a case of following
+straight into the hill. It is wonderful what can be done by twelve men
+with pick, spade, and shovel in seven hours. On this occasion we dug a
+trench ten feet long into the hill, and then the depth of bearing
+necessitated our making a drift, or tunnel, which we drove in thirty
+feet. The heat and want of air inside made the work difficult. Candles
+would not burn after we had gone about twenty feet, and the tunnel was
+so low that we had to work on our knees and then on our stomachs. There
+was a considerable danger from the roof falling in, but the fight waged
+so fiercely that we thought of little but what was ahead of us. When at
+last we got within distance of the badger, he was in rocky ground, we
+could mine no further, and being on a shelf round a corner no terrier
+could draw him. As I was the smallest of the party, it fell to me to try
+and reach him, and I crawled up as far as I could, holding a little
+bull-terrier on whom I could rely for protection for my face, and a pair
+of short badger tongs. I had indeed a bad quarter of an hour!
+
+It was stifling, cramped, and pitch dark. I kept the terrier in front of
+my head and gallantly he behaved, though every now and then the badger's
+charge, or a fierce encounter, nearly smothered me with dust and soil,
+against which I could not protect myself, as I was powerless to retreat,
+there being only room to lie flat on the ground. The man behind me was
+in the same position, tight hold of my ankles, and the man again behind
+him, and the rest of the force made a human chain, which on a signal
+from me was to be drawn out to daylight. Many attempts I made when the
+badger charged to get him with the tongs, but I had so little room to
+work my hands in that I missed him, and heard and felt the click and
+snack of his teeth on the iron. At last I felt I had hold of something,
+and I slipped the guard on the tongs, making the hold sure. I cried
+"Haul away," holding the terrier with one hand between me and the
+badger, and the tongs in the other. I found that he came with wonderful
+ease. It was not till we got to the light that I saw I had the huge
+bouncing brute by one claw, "Nip" diverting his attention from my head
+and hands. The labourers set up a shout, "He's got him by the clee," and
+a minute later we had the satisfaction of bagging him. But we were out
+only just in time. I had gone back with the terriers to see if there
+was nothing more in, and hardly had got outside again, when there was a
+fall from the roof that would, if it had taken place earlier, have
+buried some of us alive. As it was I looked round to see if we were all
+there. The men were, but one little terrier, "Pepper," a real treasure
+belonging to a neighbour of mine in Cleveland, Mr. J. P. Petch, was
+missing. We went in and found him buried, but got him out alive and
+little the worse. This was the biggest badger my brother and I ever got.
+
+But these operations are quite surpassed by those M. le Masson related
+in the following authentic story.
+
+"An extraordinary _chasse_ that lasted without interruption three days
+and three nights, took place lately in the neighbourhood of St. Omer, on
+some land in the picturesque commune of Wisques, in a wood attached to
+the château of Madame la douairière Cauvet de Blanchonval.
+
+"One morning two young sportsmen of St. Omer, MM. Théobald Cauvet and
+Charles d'Hallewyn, were told by the _garde forestier_ that on his beat
+he knew of several badgers near the place they call l'Ermitage.
+
+"The little dogs being put on the scent soon found the earths, where
+they entered, and advanced with so much courage that they never stopped
+till they had reached the bottom of the earth, where they cornered the
+badgers, which held their ground in an attitude of the most threatening
+defence.
+
+"The assailants, thus powerless, made themselves heard by barking and
+baying incessantly, and with heroic pluck, the little fellows refused to
+retreat in spite of the repeated calls of their masters.
+
+"Their perseverance being carried to this length, our young gentlemen
+formed a resolution worthy of their taste for great undertakings and
+adventures. Labourers were called from the field and commissioned at
+once to set to work to reach the badgers.
+
+"The attempt was more than bold. The mouths of the set, three in number,
+were at the foot of a hill, and embraced between them a sort of
+triangular piece of land at the apex of which the passages all united
+and formed a single underground gallery. The dogs having each entered by
+a separate hole made this clear.
+
+"A shaft was sunk in order to start a tunnel at the opening of the
+lowest hole, but a depth of 7 to 8 metres (23 to 26 feet) had to be sunk
+before the passage was reached; thence they followed the direction taken
+by the dogs, and enlarged the tunnel to reach them, making an
+underground roadway 5 feet high (1½ metres) and nearly 6 feet wide
+(1¾ metres).
+
+"Whilst the workmen were mining, the badgers on their part were also
+working ceaselessly, and kept blocking the road with the earth they
+threw back in front of the men who were pursuing them, whilst the latter
+worked in shifts (relieving parties). For three days and three nights
+these indomitable animals worked on, retreating all the time, during
+which they bored their way 49 feet whilst buried in this extension of
+their principal earth without air or food.
+
+"At one time during this war _à outrance_ it was thought they had
+escaped by some means or other, but the game terriers, which had hardly
+left them since the beginning of the struggle, soon reassured the
+workers by their redoubled cries. The undertaking was pushed on with
+greater determination than ever, and when the tunnel had reached a
+length of more than 30 metres (100 feet) they came on three badgers,
+which were quickly popped into a sack by the keeper. One of them,
+however, in his struggles succeeded in escaping from the sack, and even
+tore the clothes of the man who was carrying him. MM. Cauvet and
+d'Hallewyn showed a persistent perseverance during the whole of this
+struggle. By day and by night each in turn directed the operations of a
+siege at which more than one other lover of the pleasures of the chase
+assisted."
+
+I have given one or two out of many examples I could relate of the
+arduous nature of badger-hunting. Discipline among the workmen is as
+necessary as determination in every attempt to dig out badgers. Nothing
+imperils success so much as divided or disputed authority, and whilst
+every attention should be given to the opinions expressed in the
+councils of war during the progress of the siege, there must be no
+hesitation in carrying out the plan of campaign when once decided on, or
+the day may be wasted in earthworks, in making trenches, and attempts to
+cut off subterranean ways which have been begun only to be abandoned.
+The terriers are the most important requisite; they must be good, the
+right size, hardy, enduring, and reliable. No matter how game a dog is,
+if he cannot follow the badger he is useless. He must above all be
+full-mouthed, sharp-tongued, and ready to keep his voice going for hours
+together. He must be absolutely true, or he may make a fool of you, and
+lie fast in the earth baying an imaginary foe, or barking and scratching
+to get up a small rabbit-hole. Beware of a terrier that will think of
+such vermin when employed to fly at much higher game. They are worse
+indeed than useless, and often have I been driven nearly wild by being
+persuaded to allow some man proud of his terrier to let him go.
+
+Nothing can be more exasperating than when, after several hours of heavy
+labour and straining effort, whilst the proud owner stands smiling by
+and boasting the merits of his nailing dog, you at length reach the
+scene of all the disturbance to see a dirty little brute scratching his
+feet to tatters, frothing at the mouth, and wow-wowing to get up a
+three-inch rabbit-hole.
+
+An authority in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ recommends collars of bells
+being attached to the terriers to make the badger bolt, and states that
+broad collars of badger-skin save their necks. The former I do not
+believe to be efficacious, as fire, smoke, and crackers will not make a
+badger bolt while any one is about, and if it were efficacious it would
+be very easy to lose a bolting badger. A collar on a terrier is more
+likely to hang a dog on a root end than to save him from a bite. A
+terrier ninety-nine times out of a hundred is bitten through the muzzle,
+under the jaws, and about the skull and ears, and when inexperienced,
+about the fore-legs and shoulders. I never saw a terrier badly bitten in
+the neck, though I have seen a terrier's side torn, and one that turned
+tail punished severely in the rear. Whilst the terrier for badger should
+be game to the death, it is all-important that he should mingle
+discretion with his valour, and not drive his superior foe to
+desperation, but content himself with keeping him at bay, only using his
+teeth at a pinch and in extreme cases. Tell me, reader, how many
+terriers you know who can or will go to ground, stay there, tell the
+truth always, pass through every place a badger can, keep his head under
+the most exasperating circumstances, and come up smiling and eager after
+every round, no matter how much punished?
+
+What thousands of little curs there are called terriers, and
+fox-terriers that will no more go down a fox-earth than go up a chimney!
+How many thousands of the best of these, however finely shaped for the
+show-bench, that have no more idea of their profession and the duties
+for which nature made them, and from which they derive their name, than
+the man in the moon, and whose masters are satisfied if they can kill a
+few rats, and think them wonderfully game if they will tackle a cat!
+
+From my boyhood I have had terriers, but I never thought one worth
+keeping that could not, or would not, go to ground and show himself or
+herself worthy of their honourable name. Appearance is nothing if the
+other qualities are not present. I have had a little wire-haired terrier
+bitch (with neat, golden-tanned marked head), pretty and gentle, and
+winning in all her ways, a companion that slept on my bed each night,
+and looked the picture of innocence lying by the hearth or even on a
+lady's lap; but within that bosom beat a courageous little heart, in her
+head throbbed a brain full of sagacious intelligence, and in that soft
+brown eye lurked hidden fire. She could give deep music long sustained,
+and she never winced before the enemy. I called her "Worry," a name that
+seemed most _mal à propos_ to her casual acquaintance. For twelve long
+years she was at my side in all the ups and downs of life, leading the
+drag when I was at Cambridge, following foxhounds and bolting foxes
+when I was hunting, and my constant and daily companion, accompanying me
+into every county when I made an expedition against the badger. I was
+once amused by the remarks made about Worry by an old shoemaker who
+sometimes accompanied us with a good terrier when we were ratting. "Si'
+the (see thee), lads, Worry's t' yan (the one) fer (for) pickin' t' wick
+(the life) out on 'em," as she threw five or six big rats over her
+shoulder in half as many seconds. She died a terrible death, but game
+and uncomplaining to the last. She had a knack of squeezing herself
+through almost any kennel bars, and I had had to put her into a kennel
+for a time, and had the bars made narrower and covered with mesh wire
+netting. An hour after I had put her in I went to see her, and I was
+horror-struck to find that she was half through the bars nipped as in a
+vice, the wire torn with her teeth, and herself covered with blood and
+wounds, with one eye hanging out, blood flowing from her mouth, still
+fighting her way on--without a sound except her panting breath. She was
+delighted to see me, and with some trouble I liberated her, cut off her
+eye, staunched her wounds, and did all I could for her. She never even
+winced as I cut away the eye, and as she lay in her bed looked at me
+affectionately with her one eye and wagged her tail. The following day,
+though she did not even whine, I saw she was in terrible pain; and as
+she was at this time badly ruptured, and very lame owing to a carriage
+accident some years before which resulted in a broken thigh and a double
+fracture above the hock, I had her shot, and buried in a quiet corner of
+the orchard, with the inscription on her headstone "_Sit tibi terra
+levis_."
+
+The terriers I have found the best and surest are amongst the Yorkshire
+breed of hard, wire-haired fox-terriers, short in the leg and strong
+headed. All my own have been descended from a white, wire-haired terrier
+called Fuss, the best bitch I ever had, and a prize-winner. I bought her
+in 1870 or 1871 from a dealer called Wooton. She was bred by a man
+called Jack Ridd. Worry was out of her. My brother got a dog, Roger, a
+dead game one, at the same time from the same man, and nearly all the
+terriers I have had since are descended from these two, with out-crosses
+from local strains, including the Rev. Jack Russell's blood. I have seen
+smooth-coated terriers do equally well, but not often. The former is a
+harder and more enduring breed, though more difficult to keep clean in
+the coat, and taking time to get dry after wet in cold weather. The
+endurance of the wire-haired is remarkable. I have now a terrier, bred
+through many lines of my old favourites, which is twelve years old. His
+jolly face is scored with the marks of a thousand fights with fox and
+badger, and though lame in his shoulders, his eyes dim with age, and
+crippled with rheumatism, showing toothless gums when he smiles his
+welcome, he has twice this summer found alone the badger earths, and
+returned at evening, each time with his score of marks increased, and on
+the last occasion he left one of his ears behind him![4] A terrier that
+will go off to a badger earth on his own account, especially if a young
+one, will probably end his days and find his grave there. I have known
+several do so. Poor old Twig! Always happy, he seldom now wanders
+further than the stable-yard, and spends his declining days playing with
+the foxhound pup or sleeping in the sun, when in his dreams he fights
+his battles over again, and thrice he slays the slain. When we were
+young together he followed me every hunting morning to the meet, where
+he at once incorporated himself with the pack, greeting his friends in
+turn with a grin, a twist of his body, and a wag of his stump; and when
+the daylight faded, and the horn sounded for home, I had always to carry
+him off on my saddle, so reluctant was he, after the longest day, to
+leave his comrades of the chase. This became so troublesome that at last
+I yielded to the pressure of the huntsman, Will Nicholl, who then hunted
+the Cleveland hounds, to permit him to join the kennel establishment.
+For three seasons he scarcely missed a day, and when a fox was run to
+ground, no matter after how long or fast a run, the question, "Where is
+Twig?" was never asked twice. Always there when wanted, always
+dependable and perfect at his work, he shifted many a sulky fox that
+went to ground. Then Will Nicholl went to the Hurworth under Sir
+Reginald Graham, and took Twig with him. He did two seasons in the
+Hurworth country, from thence going to the Burton with Nicholl again.
+After a season there I had a letter saying that Nicholl feared that the
+old dog would not follow hounds another season, and he sent him back
+with me. I summered him well; he did the next season with the Cleveland,
+and came out the following season when hounds were handy or when
+occasion required, making eight seasons with foxhounds, besides being
+hunted at badger in the summer months. He had learnt not to be hard on a
+fox, but I thought I detected him in an act of violence something more
+than a year ago. We had run to ground in a drain, and Twig, who had
+heard hounds, had come across country as fast as his old legs would
+carry him, and was in before I could say "Knife." No sooner was he in
+than the fox was out, with Twig at his brush. This was not at all what
+we wanted, as the whole pack was within fifteen yards. Twig collared the
+fox as he bolted, and as the hounds were making a dash at him. I was
+angry with Twig, lifted the fox and Twig, who I thought was holding the
+fox, above my head to save reynard from the hounds. Here I had to hold
+him for five minutes, but when I tried to choke the old dog off, I
+discovered that the fox was holding Twig through the upper jaw, and the
+dog was hanging with his whole weight suspended on the fox's teeth.
+Having made the fox leave go Twig fell to the ground, and when all was
+clear I put the fox down, when we had a sharp ten minutes to ground
+again. I was there only just in time to prevent Twig from going in to
+take his revenge--the fox this time being left in peace. It is as well
+to have with you one bull-terrier, or a fox-terrier with a bit of bull
+about him. In cases of emergency, and when close up, such a dog comes in
+useful, but they are tiresome brutes as a rule to do with; they get so
+excited that they do not care what they go at, it may be the dogs or
+yourself, or I have seen them set to worry a big stone. They often go to
+ground well, but have several faults. They _will_ tackle the badger, get
+punished severely, and create all sorts of difficulties, and are
+generally nearly mute except when fighting.
+
+    [4] Dead since this was written.
+
+I had a rare life of it on one expedition with a little bull-terrier
+called Nip that I bought from a Cornishman, after a long dig in which
+Nip had distinguished himself. He was a dirty white, ugly, undershot,
+crop-eared little brute, with a tail like a shaving-brush. Shy and
+nervous, he had a fiendish amount of pugnacity and pluck. When not
+otherwise employed, he wore his teeth to the gums in vain endeavours to
+get into the interior of large stones. In a railway-carriage, so
+delighted was he at all times to get to ground, that he would get under
+the seat, and refuse to be removed if he had not on a collar and chain,
+except with the badger-tongs. He had to be muzzled and chained when with
+other dogs, and even then would make an utter fool of himself in his
+attempts to fight on every occasion. He would, when he had lost a
+badger, sulk and refuse to come out, and as it was impossible to put in
+any other dog while he was there, he had to be dug to and drawn like a
+brock. Whilst at the end of a day, when every other animal had had more
+than enough, and was glad to get food and rest, he was ready to hold me
+by the leg, and it would take the tongs and a couple of men to get his
+collar on.
+
+I have always had a great admiration for the short-coated, hard, Scotch
+terrier, and believe that they are admirably adapted for this chase, but
+I have had no experience of them. They seem cut out for it, being hardy,
+the right size, sharp-tongued, and amongst the most intelligent of the
+canine race. I knew of one who went to Craig Cluny in the edge of the
+Ballochbuie forest, and spent some hours in a vain attempt to dislodge a
+badger. He returned three miles to the inn at Braemar and found another
+terrier like himself; they trotted back together, and by their united
+efforts drew and killed an old badger! There is a spot near this place
+in the forest called Stra-na-brach--or the badger's crag--but the badger
+knows the place no more. The keeper has done his work with the trap
+throughout Aberdeenshire.
+
+Dandie Dinmont no doubt bred his dogs from these terriers, but I have no
+belief that the present race is fitted for badger-hunting. Those one
+sees on a show bench are too large to get to ground quickly and easily,
+and I doubt if there is one of the race, as at present known, that has
+ever exchanged civilities with the badger in his natural earth. Dandie
+Dinmont bred his terriers for badgers, but I am sure his never were the
+size they are now; and although Sir Walter Scott has surrounded Dandie
+with a halo of interest, and made him immortal by his eulogies, his
+fiendish cruelties have always made me hate his name, and prejudiced me
+against a breed that was developed under a hideous system. It makes my
+blood boil to read of his terriers trained to face the badger by taking
+alive young and old badgers, and sawing off the under jaws, and
+employing other indescribably cruel methods.
+
+The dachshund and the small basset, when properly selected, are
+splendidly adapted for badger-hunting. In Germany the former, and in
+France the latter, are generally bred for this purpose. Full-voiced and
+throwing a tongue like a hound, deep-chested, short-legged, and
+strong-bodied, they are perhaps the best one can have, but I do not
+think that they possess the endurance and quickness of an English
+terrier.
+
+There was a breed of wire-haired black-and-tan English terriers, but I
+imagine them to be nearly, if not altogether, extinct, that from all
+accounts must have been really good terriers in the true meaning of the
+term.
+
+In working dogs, be careful only to put in one at a time: you thus
+economize your forces, and avoid the risk of their fighting in the
+earth. More than this, if you let two dogs or a dog and a bitch in
+together, you subject them to danger and the probability of severe
+punishment. The dog in front is charged by the badger, the dog behind
+cares for nothing but that he may get to close quarters, and it is a
+case of those behind cry forward and those in front cry back. In such a
+position your terrier may have his legs and head broken, and be killed
+outright. Again, a good terrier works better and more steadily than with
+a companion, as the competition leads to jealousy. Put in your dog at
+the lowest or bottom hole of the set, driving the badger up-hill (or "to
+hill," as it is technically called) if you can. It is a much easier task
+to get a badger out in this manner, as the further up-hill the fewer are
+the passages, and generally speaking the nearer they lie to the surface.
+Furthermore, take care that you have a collar and chain for each dog,
+and that every terrier not on duty is securely fastened at a distance
+from the earth, and out of reach of any other dog.
+
+The following are the requisite implements for badger digging; they
+should be good and handy tools:--
+
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
+
+1. and 2. Spades. These should be handy, and worn to that condition
+when the edge is sharp, and the tool works easily, without having lost
+its strength. They should vary but little from the ordinary garden or
+rabbiting spade, except that where there is a depth of clay, and when in
+a deep trench, it may be easier or a relief to use a drainer's long
+narrow one.
+
+3. A crowbar.
+
+4. A scraper, or coal-rake.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
+
+5 and 6. Shovels, for clearing out the loose earth, including a
+short-handled one, or scoop, for opening the holes to let in air to the
+dogs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
+
+7. An earth-piercer, in order to locate the fight.
+
+8. Tongs. The handles should be of wood, as steel and iron "give" under
+the pressure of a man's strength at one end and the badger at the other.
+With wooden handles and steel fittings there will still be spring enough
+to work the guard, which is put on to secure the hold on the animal.
+
+9. Adze, or hatchet, for cutting roots of trees.
+
+10 and 11. Picks, single or double.
+
+Do not forget when starting on a badger-hunt to take plenty of
+refreshment with you, and remember that it is a dry job digging
+ceaselessly on a summer's day. Draught cider, light beer, and cold tea
+are the best liquors to work on for a long stretch. Do not leave the
+sacks behind you, nor cord to secure them with. And finally, reader, if
+you are a true sportsman, whilst sparing neither necessary pain to
+yourself nor dog during the progress of the siege, do not subject your
+terriers to unnecessary exposure and punishment; and when the day's work
+is done, however weary and however hungry you may be, do not attend to
+your own wants till you have seen each member of your gallant little
+pack well brushed and oiled (eyes and ears and wounds, if any, cleaned),
+fed, and put into a kennel with plenty of clean bedding. And do not
+forget to make a brave foe as comfortable as you can. If you keep a
+badger in confinement as a pet, he should have access to plenty of fresh
+cold water, and be fed on young rabbits and bread till accustomed to
+confinement, after which he will take gradually to and remain healthy on
+almost any scraps, meat, and vegetables from the house that you give
+him. He requires a dry dark kennel and yard, which should be kept
+scrupulously clean, when he will never be offensive. Some badgers take
+kindly at once to these new circumstances, others sulk and occasionally
+waste and die unless great care is taken. If the badger's evacuations
+show a tendency to purging, feed on bread chiefly and rabbit, or if
+fastidious in his appetite, give raw eggs and bread.
+
+If by this little book I have done anything towards interesting those
+who care about the perpetuation of a wild and interesting animal that
+is fast disappearing from our hillsides and valleys, and shown that
+healthy exercise and pleasure can be obtained in protecting him from
+extinction and by fairly entering the lists against him, I shall have
+done something towards delaying that sad day when the last badgers, with
+the lessons of courage and endurance that they can teach, have vanished
+for ever.
+
+
+THE END
+
+_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in the original
+publication, including on Page 61 where "vne" and "vn" have been
+retained as published--"C'est vne chose" and "car si on passe vn".
+The following change was made:
+
+    Page 48
+    entred a good depth _changed to_
+    entered a good depth
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Badger
+       A Monograph
+
+Author: Alfred E. Pease
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36830]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BADGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, David Garcia and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h1>THE BADGER</h1>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="600" height="428" alt="Frontispiece"
+title="" />
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="fltleft smcap">Badger.</span>
+<span class="fltright">[<i>Frontispiece.</i></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title">THE BADGER</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="sub"><i>A MONOGRAPH</i></span><br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="by">BY</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="author">ALFRED E. PEASE, M.P.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="books">AUTHOR OF</span><br />
+"THE CLEVELAND HOUNDS AS A TRENCHER-FED PACK,"<br />
+"HORSE BREEDING FOR FARMERS," ETC.<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="120" height="117" alt="Logo" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pub2">LONDON</span><br />
+<span class="pub1 smcap">LAWRENCE AND BULLEN, Ltd.</span><br />
+<span class="pub2">16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.</span><br />
+<span class="pub2">1898</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="rights"><i>All rights reserved</i></span></p>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Richard Clay &amp; Sons, Limited,<br />
+London &amp; Bungay.</span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hunting it is the noblest exercise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes men laborious, active, wise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brings health and doth the spirits delight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It helps the hearing and the sight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It teacheth arts that never slip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The memory&mdash;good horsemanship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Search, sharpness, courage, and defence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And chaseth all ill-habits thence."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ben Jonson.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span>
+THE BADGER</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2><a name="part_i" id="part_i"></a>PART I</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I do</span> not know of the existence of any monograph on the Badger, ancient
+or modern, in English or any other language. Nor have I been able to
+find any adequate description in any work on natural history or British
+fauna of this the largest, and by no means the least interesting, of the
+real wild animals that still exist in England and Wales. So that,
+however unfitted I may be to write a scientific treatise on the last of
+the bear tribe that we have yet with us, I have ventured to think that
+my own observations and researches, with experiences of the chase of
+this troglodyte, may be of interest to lovers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> of the animal world, and
+to not a few sportsmen.</p>
+
+<p>From my boyhood all wild animals have had for me an intense fascination,
+and though in later years my hunting-grounds have been for the most part
+in other countries and continents, and among larger game, I doubt if any
+of the beasts whose acquaintance I have thus made has been a source of
+greater interest to me than the badger. The charm of an animal for man,
+where the sporting is the master instinct, appears to be measured by his
+capacity to elude observation and defy pursuit; and the badger, judged
+by this test, is a charming creature. I may be mistaken, but to me it
+appears that the chase in its widest sense is one of the best schools
+for studying nature. Such knowledge as I have gained of the badger has
+been due to the indulgence of this "brutal" instinct, as it is profanely
+called, and from quiet observation. If the reader will spare a little
+time, I will show him the manner in which my observations are made, but
+I warn him that there is nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> scientific about them. I have no
+microscope and no dissecting-room.</p>
+
+<p>It is June. A hot summer's day is dying, and the sun is sinking through
+soft clouds of glory behind the pine woods on the hill. A thousand birds
+in vale and woodland are singing with an ecstasy and sweetness that seem
+tenderly conscious that the hours of song are numbered&mdash;that the days
+are coming when darkness or dawn will steal over the land in silence,
+unheralded as it is to-day by their wild sweet notes. We wander across
+the pasture by the cattle, and along the side of the ripening meadow
+towards the wooded bank under the edge of the moor, where the badger has
+his home. As we near the covert, a few rabbits that have ventured far
+out into the field frisk up the hill, alarming their less adventurous
+companions, and all make for the shelter of the wood, displaying a
+hundred little cotton tails.</p>
+
+<p>As the gate into the plantation opens a few wood-pigeons stop their
+cooing and fly swiftly up and out of the trees with a clean cutting
+slap-slap of their wings to some other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> solitude safer from intrusion.
+Once in the shadow of the firs, softly treading we come up-wind to the
+badger "set." Here we choose a place among the larch stems which gives
+us a good view of the most-used entrances to the earth, some fifteen
+yards from the nearest hole. We turn up our coat-collars, draw our caps
+over our faces, and settle ourselves in such positions as will least try
+our patience and muscles during the hour in which we must remain
+immovable. In idea nothing could be more delightful than to sit in the
+deepening twilight of a summer's evening, with a soft breath of air
+stirring the feathery larch tops against the sky above, the ground
+carpeted with the vivid green of the opening bracken, surrounded by the
+music of cooing wood-pigeons, the full notes of blackbird and thrush,
+and listening to the pleasant sounds carried on the breeze from the
+distant farms.</p>
+
+<p>Delightful as is the enjoyment of the confidences of Nature in her most
+hidden solitudes, the pleasure has its price, and the angler on a
+summer's eve can sympathize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> with the man who sits over a badger earth.
+But he at least can protect himself to some extent against the
+exasperating attacks of midges in myriads, and vent his feelings aloud,
+and flog the waters, whilst the latter must stoically endure the torture
+and the plague. The most he can do is occasionally to draw his hand from
+his pocket, and slowly move it to his face and massacre the settlers on
+his nose, his ears, his neck, and carefully move it again into its
+hiding-place. In spite of the torment, however, he may enjoy the sights
+and sounds, known to but few, that these witching hours alone can give.
+The rabbits emerge within a yard of him, first the little ones,
+unconscious of his eye, then the old ones sit up and, imitating his
+immovability, watch him critically with their black beady eyes set, and
+noses palpitating; after a while old paterfamilias gives his signal of
+alarm or warning by a sharp pat, pat with his hind foot, telling all
+round that there is something in his vicinity he does not know how to
+account for. The cry of the startled blackbird warns that some other
+enemy is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> on foot as he flies from the bur-tree to the thorn, and we see
+an old fox moving through the young bracken with lowered head and brush,
+starting off on his nightly raid. A belated squirrel throws himself from
+the tree above, runs close by us on the ground, up the stem of a larch,
+and is soon lost in the sea of green above. A numerous and dissipated
+family of little crested wrens, which should have settled for the night
+ere this, twitter with diminutive voices as they twist in and out and
+hang on the boughs of the spruce in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, as the daylight fades, one after another of the singers
+becomes silent, the sounds of day are hushed, and a perfect silence
+reigns in the twilight amidst the trees. Without any warning we are
+conscious of the clean black-and-white face of an old badger over the
+earthwork outside his hole, and presently he is all in view, sitting
+with bowed fore-legs and his head turning on his lithe outstretched
+neck, scenting the night air. There is nothing to excite his suspicion,
+so he shambles to the nearest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> tree, puts up his fore-feet and rubs his
+neck, smells round the well-known trunk, and having satisfied himself
+that all is as usual, sits for awhile admiring the limited landscape
+before him. He then shuffles a few yards from the earth, scratches the
+soil here and there as if to keep his digging tools in order, and
+returns to the bottom of the tree. Another pied face appears, and more
+quickly than the first she trundles off to join her mate, and they
+bounce along one after another over the earths, round the trees, down
+one hole and out at another, and then rest awhile outside the earth they
+first emerged from. Three more come forth, and go through very much the
+same programme as the first, snorting and bumping along one after the
+other and one against the other.</p>
+
+<p>Presently one takes off into the thickest covert. You can hear him
+bumping along, sweeping through the bracken and crackling the dead wood.
+Presently the others come past you, tumbling along so close that you
+could hit them with your stick. Probably they take no notice, but if you
+wink, wince,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> or move they will shamble back to the earth and watch you
+for ten minutes. It is then a trial for your nerves. If you move you
+have seen the last of them for the night, but if you succeed in being
+perfectly still they will recover sufficient confidence to sally forth
+again, but will take off quickly in different directions for their
+night's ramble. Then at last we may raise our stiff limbs and turn our
+steps through the dark woods, leaving the fox and badger to their
+devices, and once more frightening the rabbits which flash past us as we
+wade homewards through the grass heavy and wet with dew. We have made no
+startling discovery on this our first night together by the badger
+"set," but probably we have made a better acquaintance with badgers in
+this hour than we could have gained in any museum of natural history,
+with the assistance of the most erudite Fellow of the Zoological
+Society.</p>
+
+<p>To understand and appreciate all sides of the badger's character you
+must see him in war as well as at peace; and such knowledge has to be
+purchased by great labour and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> bodily fatigue. In the name of sport, as
+in the name of liberty, great crimes are often committed. There are
+those who look upon hunting of all sorts as cruel and degrading, and
+cannot understand the pleasures of a chase involving the distress of
+pursuit or pain to any animal. I have a certain sympathy for such
+sentiments, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, my very love of
+animals increases my passion for hunting them. Besides the longing to
+come to close quarters with them, the desire to possess or to handle
+them, there is the natural ambition to be even with them. There is an
+unwritten code of honour in the field which, if followed, makes the
+struggle of wits and strength, of skill and endurance, a fair one, and
+one in which alone many a valuable lesson out of Nature's book can be
+taught. To relieve any tender consciences amongst my readers I may here
+declare, without wishing to reflect on brother sportsmen whose methods
+are more Cromwellian, that when victorious in the war with a badger,
+when, after many a hard-fought battle in his subterranean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+fortress&mdash;when mine and counter-mine, tunnel, shaft, and trench have
+driven him fighting to his last stand in his deepest and innermost
+citadel, and he has been forced to capitulate&mdash;I have never abandoned
+him to a victorious soldiery howling for blood, but have always given
+him honourable terms. I have never willingly or wantonly killed a
+badger; he has invariably become a pampered prisoner, or been
+transported to some new home, where some one whom I had interested in
+his species was prepared to give him protection, and a new start in
+life. Among those who have given my badgers protection I may name Mr.
+Edward North Buxton, who has done so much to maintain the natural beauty
+of Epping Forest, and to protect wild life within its borders. I know of
+several thriving colonies of badgers within the forest precincts
+descended from my prisoners of war.</p>
+
+<p>I have kept many badgers in confinement, but never to "try" my dogs, and
+all my terriers learnt their trade in legitimate fashion. Badger-baiting
+I unreservedly condemn&mdash;it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> is as much a profanation of sport as
+coursing bagged hares in enclosed grounds. There are degrees of
+wickedness, and when a badger is placed in a properly-constructed
+badger-box there are few terriers that would not be vanquished in the
+encounter. The figure below illustrates the correct box.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig01.jpg" width="400" height="141" alt="Fig. 1." title="" />
+<span class="caption smcap">Fig. 1.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the atrocious methods by which the badger was baited in the last
+century is described and denounced in volume xii. of the <i>Sporting
+Magazine</i>, 1788. "They dig a place in the earth about a yard long, so
+that one end is four feet deep. At this end a strong stake is driven
+down. Then the badger's tail is split, a chain put through it, and
+fastened to the stake with such ability that the badger can come up to
+the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> end of the place. The dogs are brought and set upon the poor
+animal, who sometimes destroys several dogs before it is killed."</p>
+
+<p>Badger-baiting, it seems, was the price the race had to pay for its
+existence, and with the happy disuse of a brutal sport the harmless
+badger has been doomed to extinction. The only method by which any
+British wild animal can be preserved from extinction in this age of what
+is termed progress, is to hunt it. Who can doubt, that if fox-hunting
+and otter-hunting were stopped to-day, both these creatures would be
+extinct within the next few years? It may be a hard bargain to make with
+them, but considering their own crimes of violence, and their
+incompatibility with "civilization," it does not seem to be a too severe
+condition to impose on the fox and the otter, that if they are permitted
+to live they must at least submit to the risks and fortunes of the
+chase. Not being able to do more than speculate on the intellectual and
+nervous capacity of animals, we are apt to assign to them some measure
+of human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> powers of thought and feeling. Undoubtedly they are physically
+less sensitive, and we probably err when we ascribe to them more than a
+slight ability to anticipate, or credit them with such sentiments as
+anxiety, mental distress, and those thoughts and sensations that in the
+main make pain intolerable. Those species that have long been associated
+with man have, I think, a greater capacity for suffering. The
+individuality of each domestic race has been developed; the difference
+of temperament and character of each individual becomes more marked, and
+more or less humanized, according to the influences by which it is
+surrounded. There is a more uniform character and greater similarity of
+temperament among wild animals, and the more refined the civilization
+and the more cultivated the senses, the more sensitive will the whole
+animal become. This may be seen in the most common of Nature's
+operations. The wild beast produces its young with ease and without
+pain. With woman, raised amidst the refinements of civilization, the
+same operation is with every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> precaution and assistance sometimes a
+dangerous, always an agonizing ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>No, the terms are not hard. Take the case of a fox, the most hunted of
+animals. The ordinary lot of a fox compared with that of any other
+creature, wild or domestic, or even with man himself, is not an
+unenviable one. Unlike the domestic animals, he is not born into
+servitude or to die in early life by the butcher's knife or axe. Happier
+than man, he lives his life, whether longer or shorter, free from the
+worries, cares, and the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. The fox's
+life is free as air. Protected for the most part from the natural
+consequences of his marauding disposition, fair play is given to him to
+avoid the punishment he deserves by the exercise of that strategy,
+activity, and endurance with which he is so abundantly endowed. Two or
+three days in the three hundred and sixty-five he may have to exert
+himself more or less to save his brush, or the end may come swiftly and
+suddenly after a long run; but even so, are there not many of us who
+would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> be glad to know that our death would come as swiftly and
+painlessly to us as to the fox, who, flying for forty minutes before the
+pack, confident, perhaps, to the last that he is a match for his
+pursuers, is rolled over in his stride? The sportsman may pity the
+sinking fox, with every desire to see the victory of the straining pack,
+in the moment when, after gallantly standing up before hounds, a
+straight-necked veteran finds he has shot his last bolt, and turns with
+fire yet in his eye to meet death in its swiftest form.</p>
+
+<p>There is something strange in the mixture of pain with pleasure. My
+little son comes out cub-hunting with me in the early morning of a
+September day. He is the picture of delight, sitting on his pony among
+the hounds, the effigy of enjoyment as he follows them with his and his
+pony's head just above the high bracken, the incarnation of satisfaction
+as he receives his first brush and is blooded. He is none the less a
+little sportsman for sobbing himself to sleep at night with his brush
+hugged under the bedclothes, because of the thought that the bright
+little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> cubs he saw killed will never again run in and out of the wood
+on the hillside as of yore. I look into his room the following day, and
+find him in his night-shirt busy extracting the tail-bone from his
+trophy, and he stops in his work only to ask when the hounds will be out
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The power of enjoying hunting of any sort is no evidence of want of
+tenderer feelings. It may be that the days of sport are numbered by the
+exigencies of what is termed the progress of civilization; but whether
+men's hearts will be braver, their bodies and minds healthier, or their
+natures kindlier and happier for the change, only time may show. All
+this is something in the nature of apology; but, excuse or none,
+thousands are conscious that the nearest approach to pure unmixed
+pleasure that they have known has been derived from the chase, where
+cares are forgotten, pulses quickened, eyes brightened, and the mind
+refreshed. About conscious or unconscious vicarious sacrifice with
+regard to the badger I will not say more than this, that the baiting of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+an animal in confinement, even though he be but the scapegoat for a
+thousand of his kind, is so repugnant to humanity, and so likely to
+breed cruelty, that though I lament his imminent extinction I would say,
+"perish <i>Meles taxus</i>" rather than let him pay this price for the
+continuance of his race, and, whatever view he might have himself, I
+would refuse him the option.</p>
+
+<p>The badger has made a wonderful struggle for existence, and may linger
+on for many years yet in the more secluded corners of England and Wales
+(in Scotland he is almost extinct), but he owes all to his own
+mysterious silent ways, and nothing to man's mercy in the matter. The
+intelligent and unprejudiced wearers of velveteen, who, with the tacit
+consent of their masters, have by means of the steel trap, flag-trap,
+and gun, exterminated and banished for ever the most interesting of our
+animals and the most beautiful of our birds, have hitherto failed in
+their ruthless attempt to rid earth and heaven of everything but furred
+and feathered game, so far as the badger is concerned. In many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> English
+counties, however, the badger has given in before ceaseless digging,
+snaring, and shooting, and the silent covert where he had his earth,
+where he dug and delved and made his wonderful subterranean stronghold,
+knows him no more. He has gone with the polecat, the pine marten, the
+wild cat, the harriers, the buzzards, and a host of the brightest and
+loveliest of our birds. Guiltless of the crimes of his fellow-victims
+against game, he was and is still ignorantly classed under that
+all-embracing word of the keeper, "vermin." There are few who lament his
+disappearance save perhaps the makers of shaving-brushes, and the old
+people whose faith in the efficacy of "badger-grease" can no longer find
+the opportunity of exercising the same. This faith is an old one. I read
+in the <i>Sporting Magazine</i>, 1800, volume xvii.&mdash;"The flesh, blood, and
+grease of the badger are very useful for oils, ointments, salves, and
+powders, for shortness of breath, the cough of the lungs, for the stone,
+sprained sinews, coll-achs, etc. The skin, being well dressed, is very
+warm and comfortable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> for ancient people who are troubled with paralytic
+disorders." Evidently a few badgers in the good old days supplied the
+place of the country doctor. About the fancied or really mischievous
+habits of the badger I shall have something to say later on.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+<a name="part_ii" id="part_ii"></a>PART II</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> badger (<i>Meles taxus</i>, or <i>Ursus meles</i>) is known under various
+aliases, viz. the Brock (Danish <i>Broc</i>, Erse <i>Broc</i>, Welsh <i>Brock</i>), the
+Pate, and the Grey. Of these the Brock is perhaps the commonest, and is
+the name most used in the north of England. There is an expression
+common in the north that would lead the ignorant to believe that a
+badger perspires, or sweats, viz. "sweating like a brock." In Yorkshire
+I often hear a man say, "Ah sweats like a brock," and the user of this
+elegant metaphor innocently imagines he is perspiring like a badger. But
+"brock" is the old north-country word for the insect known as
+"cuckoo-spit" (<i>Aphrophora spumaria</i>), which covers itself in the larval
+state with froth and foam (cf. Welsh <i>broch</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> foam)&mdash;<i>vide</i> Atkinson's
+<i>Dictionary of the Cleveland Dialect</i>. In parts of Cornwall and Wales
+the word "Grey" may be in use, but I myself have only come across it in
+books, more especially old ones. Though able to boast these several
+titles, there is but one species known in Europe, and in general
+appearance he is the same animal, though varying locally in size and
+shade of colour. He has been classed as belonging to the bear tribe, but
+the badger is really a single species and a sub-genus in itself. The
+dentition of a badger is half tuberculous and half carnivorous, and in
+this respect approaches the martens.</p>
+
+<p>About few animals has there been more nonsense written in regard to
+habits and anatomy, and for many of the popular notions concerning the
+badger there is no foundation whatever. In the ancient books descriptive
+of sport and wild animals we read that there were in England two kinds
+of badger&mdash;the one as we know it, and the other a "pig-badger," with
+cloven hoofs and other attributes of the porker. It is astonishing how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+these old authors drew upon their imagination, and where they found
+suggestions for their errors. In this case it may be they were misled by
+the custom, which still continues, of distinguishing between the dog and
+bitch, or male and female badger, by using the terms boar and sow; or it
+may be the idea dawned whilst they ate their rasher from a badger ham!</p>
+
+<p>There are altogether not more than five (or perhaps six) kinds of badger
+known throughout the world, so far as I know.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Lydekker, whose authority I accept, enumerates four kinds
+of badger&mdash;
+<br />
+1. The American (<i>Taxidea americana</i>).<br />
+2. The Common (<i>Meles taxus</i>).<br />
+3. Malayan (<i>Mydaus meliceps</i>).<br />
+4. The Sand-badger (<i>Arctonyx collaris</i>).<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>1. The European badger, known over almost the whole of Europe and Asia.
+2. A larger species, confined to the high steppes of Eastern Siberia. 3.
+The North American mistonusk, or chocaratouch (<i>Meles labradorica</i> or
+<i>hudsonius</i>). 4. The Mexican badger, found south of latitude 35 degrees.
+5. The Japanese badger. 6. The Indian badger (<i>Meles indica</i>) might be
+added perhaps, though it has a pig's snout, long legs, and long tail.
+Its native name is bhalloo-soor, <i>i.e.</i> the bear pig.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>Nos. 3 and 4, the chocaratouch and Mexican, differ so distinctly from
+the others in dentition, though in appearance similar to the European
+species, that a new genus, Taxidea, has been established for their
+reception.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In Lower California there is a variety of badger which
+differs from described forms by its dark colouration and broad nuchal
+stripe.
+</div>
+
+<p>Popular error, and old writers, describe the badger as having his legs
+shorter on one side than the other, and the latter, with philosophical
+ingenuity, have discovered therein a wonderful provision of nature; for,
+says Nicholas Cox, "He hath very sharp Teeth, and therefore is accounted
+a deep-biting beast; his back is broad, and his legs are longer on the
+right side than the left, and therefore he runneth best when he gets on
+the side of an Hill or a Cart roadway." The same author also
+states&mdash;"Her manner <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>is to fight on her back, using thereby both her
+Teeth and her Nails, and by blowing up her Skin after a strange and
+wonderful manner she defendeth herself against any blow and teeth of
+Dogs. Only a small stroke on her Nose will dispatch her presently. You
+may thrash your heart weary on her back, which she values as a matter of
+nothing." If such a provision in the matter of legs did exist, one can
+realize the comfort of the uneven legs on a hill-side, but what gravels
+us is the discomfort of the return journey! The rolling, shambling gait
+that characterizes the badger is doubtless the origin of this absurd
+theory, which might be equally applied to any other member of the bear
+family. The European badger, as we find him in England, Wales, Scotland,
+and Ireland, stands about ten to twelve inches from the ground, has a
+long, stout body, with the belly near the earth. He has a coat so long
+and dense, and legs so short, that he appears to travel very nearly
+<i>ventre à terre</i>. The male is somewhat larger than the female, and
+weighs more. The weight of a male is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> about 25 lbs., that of a female
+about 22 lbs. When they are fat, or in grease in September, they will
+scale more. Badgers have been known to weigh up to about 40 lbs.; the
+largest I ever dug out and weighed was an old lean dog badger that
+scaled over 35 lbs.</p>
+
+<p>The head of the badger is wedge-shaped in general conformation, the back
+of the head large, the cheek-bones well sprung, and the muzzle fine and
+long. The nose or snout is black in colour, long and full; the eyes
+small, black, or black-blue; and the ears small, round, close-set, and
+neat. The strength of a badger's legs is most remarkable, and for his
+size (the animal only weighs from 19 lbs. to 35 lbs.) he possesses a
+most wonderful combination of bone and muscle. The legs are very short
+and the joints large; the feet, like the legs, are nearly black, and are
+large and long. The badger is a plantigrade, that is, when travelling he
+puts down the whole of his foot, including the heel, flat on the ground.
+His fore-feet are larger, longer, and better equipped for digging than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+his hind, but all are armed with long, sharp claws, and it is prodigious
+what he can effect with them. There is no mistaking his tracks&mdash;no
+animal's footprint is in the least like his. His heel is large and wide;
+this, and his four round, plump toes, leave an impression in sand, mud,
+or snow that cannot be confounded with any other. If the mud is deep, or
+there is snow on the ground, he also leaves the mark of his claws, but
+as a rule these are not observable, as he puts his weight on the sole of
+his foot&mdash;his tracks are usually almost in a line. The badger is cut out
+for a miner. His wedge-shaped head is capable of forcing a passage
+through sand and soft strata, whilst his armour-tipped diggers are
+worked by machinery that rivals in power the steam navvy; and whilst his
+fore-feet are going like an engine, throwing stones, bits of rock, sand,
+clay, and all that he comes in contact with between his fore-legs (which
+are set wide apart, leaving plenty of room under the chest), his
+powerful hams are working his hind-legs and feet like little demons,
+throwing back all that the fore-feet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> throw under his belly. And this is
+not all. His powerful jaw and teeth will cut, break, and tear all roots
+that obstruct his passage onwards, and it is most entertaining to see
+him going through earth, shale, and stone with the rapidity and
+sustained energy of a machine. No one who has not seen it would credit
+what one of these animals can do. I have often been defeated by their
+being able to penetrate more quickly than even a gang of men with
+pick-axe, spade, shovels, and crowbar could follow. And it is safe to
+say that as long as a terrier is not up to the badger, the badger is not
+only advancing quicker than the men (if his earth is on a hill-side),
+but has also, in nine cases out of ten, barricaded his retreat and
+scored a victory. I have known a badger, left for awhile by the terrier,
+bore his way straight up out to daylight and escape. The badger is
+covered with a thick, long-haired coat, which with a loose skin of
+extraordinary density and toughness forms a complete and effective
+armour. The hair on his head is short and smooth, and the sharp, clean
+black-and-white markings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> of his head give a very pretty and effective
+appearance to it. The general appearance in colour of a badger is a sort
+of silvery-grey, turning to black on the throat, breast, belly, and
+legs. Inverting the usual colouring of other animals, which is generally
+dark on the back, with lighter colouring on the belly and under the arms
+and thighs, the badger is lighter on the back and black underneath. Not
+only is this colouring peculiar to the badger, but his hair is unlike
+that of any other creature known to me, being light at the root and
+darker above.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig02.jpg" width="600" height="125" alt="Fig. 2." title="" />
+<span class="caption smcap">Fig. 2.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The colour of a badger alters with age. The little cubs, till they are
+seven or eight months old, are a clean, bright, light silvery-grey; they
+then become yellower in their coats, a colour which they keep sometimes
+permanently, but which they generally change<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> after two years for a suit
+of darker, purer grey. The badger's tail is about five inches long,
+covered with long, coarse, lighter-coloured hair than that on his body,
+and is of a yellowish-brown colour.</p>
+
+<p>The badger has another peculiar distinction that is somewhat mysterious,
+viz. a pouch, the vent of which is close under the root of the tail, and
+contains an oily f&oelig;tid matter which he has the power of emitting.
+Different uses have been ascribed to this provision, such as that which
+ferrets and polecats have. I have never noticed a badger use it as has
+been suggested, as a mode of defence or annoyance, and am sure that this
+is not its purpose. But there is no doubt the badger sucks and licks
+this substance, whether by way of taking a tonic, a cooling draught, a
+stimulant, or other physic I cannot say. I am, however, inclined to
+believe, that from this source he is able to maintain his health and
+support life during those periods of seclusion and total retirement in
+his "earth" which have led naturalists to describe him as a hibernating
+animal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+In this theory I am strengthened by a French author, Edmond Le Masson,
+who writes&mdash;"The badger does not always give evidence of his presence in
+his woody retreat.... There, should one go to see him, he may, from pure
+idleness, remain shut up, it being easy for him to support himself
+during the longest period of retirement by licking the secretion which
+oozes from the pouch under his tail." The author goes on to give an
+account which was sent to the French papers by M. Récopé, Garde Général
+at Marly-le-Roi, of a badger that was shut in a culvert without any food
+whatever for forty-five days, walled in on every side, and where no tree
+root could penetrate. A gamekeeper, a noted trapper, had blocked the
+exit, and tried in every way he could devise to trap him, from February
+18, 1853, to April 4, and when at last he succumbed to a ruse of the
+keeper's he was quite lively, and weighed nearly 19 lbs. It appears that
+however carefully his traps were set in the mouth of the exit, the
+badger came every night and rolled on them and struck them, as they will
+do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> when they suspect any human infernal machine. That he will remain
+for a week or two at a time without issuing from his "earth" is certain,
+but the most casual observer will see badger tracks in the snow in the
+severest weather, and I have never been able to find that there were no
+tracks in the snow issuing from the "earths" in winter for more than a
+week or two at a time. The badger is less active, eats less, goes fewer
+and shorter journeys in winter, and has a hibernating tendency; but the
+idea that the British species shuts himself up and takes to his bed
+through the winter months, and never comes forth till spring, is a
+fallacy.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig03.jpg" width="400" height="211" alt="Fig. 3. Lower Jaw of Badger." title="" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 3.</span> Lower Jaw of Badger.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig04.jpg" width="400" height="207" alt="Fig. 4. Dovetailed Jaws." title="" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 4.</span> Dovetailed Jaws.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 286px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig05.jpg" width="286" height="450" alt="Fig. 5. Skull of Badger&mdash;front view." title="" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 5.</span> Skull of Badger&mdash;front view.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Having attempted a slight description of the badger as far as his
+exterior is concerned, I shall leave to "Dryasdust" the description and
+nomenclature of the badger's interior economy, as well as the
+enumeration, weights, and measurements of his bones and muscles. He
+possesses, however, one or two structural peculiarities that deserve a
+little attention. There is much similarity in the general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> conformation
+of the badger's and bear's skull, but the protecting ridge on the head
+is absent in the bear. What gives to the badger's jaw its proverbial and
+terrific force? To witness its work is to know that its power of biting,
+crushing, and holding must be the result of some peculiarly strong
+mechanical as well as muscular construction. The examination of the
+skull helps in the solution of the mystery. The conformation of the jaw
+is strong, and the muscles attached to it powerful; but besides this he
+has two distinguishing structural additions that give his jaws,
+furnished with his formidable teeth, the strength and retentive power of
+an iron vice. The first is that his lower jaws are locked into sockets
+in the skull, and are thereby made&mdash;unlike those of all other animals I
+know of&mdash;impossible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> of dislocation.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> His head or skull, when stripped
+of flesh and bare, still retains the lower jaws in such a way that they
+cannot be displaced without fracturing the massive bones of the head or
+jaw. The teeth of a badger require respectful attention. There are
+eighteen teeth in the lower and sixteen in the upper jaw, in all
+thirty-four. The four big molars, two above and two below, are large and
+strong, the upper being much the larger and wider ones, the lower being
+longer and fitting within the upper, as do all the lower teeth. The four
+canines are large, thick, round, long and formidable, and are his chief
+weapons. The lower canines dovetail when the jaws close with the upper,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+but all the four points or ends turn outward and backward.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The curved ridges of bone on the skull by which the lower
+jaw is held in its place by gripping the condyle are more or less well
+developed in most of the weasel family.
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig06.jpg" width="400" height="220" alt="Fig. 6. Skull&mdash;side view." title="" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 6.</span> Skull&mdash;side view.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second peculiarity arises from a high ridge of bone, standing
+straight up and running from the base of the skull to between the ears,
+giving a firm hold to the ligaments and tendons, and an additional
+leverage and length, which are again rendered more effective by passing
+over the high cheek-bones as over a pulley before reaching the jaws.
+There is a saying that "a badger never leaves go till he makes his teeth
+meet," and there is a foundation of truth in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> it. The length of time he
+will hold on to the limb of an enemy is certainly fearful, and the way
+in which his thick strong canines go through the bone. On one occasion,
+in Wales, a keeper residing near the place I was staying at thought he
+saw the badger's tail at the end of a badger-digging, and laid hold of
+it to draw him. He had made a terrible mistake, and had got hold of a
+hind-foot. The badger held him by the wrist for ten minutes with his arm
+stretched up the hole; when he let go his hold the hand was hanging by a
+few shreds, and had, of course, to be amputated. I have always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> drawn a
+badger when possible by the tail, as the use of the tongs is sometimes
+difficult, especially in certain holes and at great depths, and there is
+a liability for the tongs to give way, and then the badger charges in
+your face or through your legs. I have seen a badger's teeth break and
+fly off in chips from iron tongs, a sight and sound that is not
+pleasant. To one who knows how to do it, drawing by the tail is a
+simple, quiet, and effective way of "taking the brock."</p>
+
+<p>A badger has the proverbial nine lives that John Chinaman attributes to
+women and we to cats. You cannot kill a badger by a blow on the head,
+the structure is so dense. His brain is so well protected by the ridges
+of bone along his skull and over his eye-sockets, and by the strength
+and projection of his cheek-bones, as to make him all but invulnerable
+in that quarter. His skin is so thick and tough, and his coat so heavy
+and coarse, that shot will scarcely penetrate it; but he has one place
+as tender as a nigger's shins, and that is his nose, where, if he is
+struck once, he is instantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> dispatched. I was witness of a scene in
+the hunting field with the Cleveland hounds during the mastership of the
+late Mr. Henry Turner Newcomen, which, however disgusting, illustrated
+the vitality of the badger. We thought we had run a fox to ground in a
+drain. The terriers were sent for, one was put in to bolt him, but after
+a quarter of an hour's attempt he came out, having given it up, with
+severe marks of punishment. One that could be depended on was then
+dispatched to ground, and digging operations commenced. As time went on
+we thought from the sound that it could not be a fox, and presently
+there was a charge down the drain, and a badger came bouncing and
+floundering out among the crowd of bystanders, the terrier holding on to
+him. The other terriers, barking furiously to join in the fray, excited
+the hounds in an adjoining field; they broke out past the whips, and
+nineteen couple were soon at the badger, who was entirely lost to view
+in the struggling and worrying mass. But he was plying his jaws all the
+time, as was evidenced by the howls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> of pain from the wounded hounds as
+they withdrew from this unaccustomed entertainment. The whips and others
+did their best to flog the hounds off, but this was not accomplished for
+at least ten minutes. After much bloodshed, and when the last hound had
+been choked off, the badger showed neither scratch nor wound, and looked
+as fresh as possible. Mr. Newcomen ordered a whip to despatch him and
+end the tragedy. The whip clubbed a weighted hunting-stock, striking him
+several smashing blows on the head, and left him apparently dead. A
+farmer having asked if he might have him to stuff, put him in a sack and
+carried him off. A few days later I met the farmer, Mr. R. Brunton, of
+Marton, and he told me that when he got home the badger was as lively as
+ever, so he put him on a collar and chain and fastened him to a kennel.
+The day following he thought, from the appearance of the badger, that he
+was hurt about the head, and with some difficulty examined him, and
+found that the lower jaw was injured. He thereupon got a revolver and
+fired a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> shot into his ear, and then he assured me the badger only shook
+his head. He was so taken aback that for a moment or two he thought of
+giving up the attempt to kill him, but firing a second ball into him
+behind the shoulder he put an end at once to the poor brute's
+sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>The badger, as I have said, is becoming very scarce in England, and is
+decreasing in numbers in France and other countries as well. There are,
+however, several English and Welsh counties where in woodlands he still
+is to be found in considerable numbers, and some districts where they
+are common enough. The badger is fairly plentiful in many parts of
+Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Hants, and Gloucestershire, along the
+Welsh border, and in Mid and South Wales. It is to be found also in
+Sussex, Wilts, occasionally in Surrey and Kent, and here and there
+through the Midland and home counties. It is becoming rare in the north
+of England, but still lingers in the North Riding of Yorkshire, chiefly
+in the districts of the hills and moors between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> Scarborough and York.
+In Lincolnshire it is to be found in places; it is extinct in Durham,
+and practically so in Northumberland, where within fifty years it was
+common enough.</p>
+
+<p>A Northumberland gamekeeper of my father's has told me he knew it in the
+Kyloe Craggs and the Howick Woods, and remembered his father taking him
+to see their dog tried at a badger near Belford. In none of these places
+are they to be found now. In my own district of Cleveland they were in
+1874 all but extinct. I remember as a boy two were caught in our
+neighbourhood, one in Kildale and one at Ayton; but in 1874 I had three
+young badgers sent me from Cornwall, dug out by one of my uncles, and
+these I turned out in my father's coverts, and secured for them the
+keeper's protection. Since then they have, with a few later
+introductions, held their own, and a few years ago I knew of nine badger
+"sets" in the vicinity, and some five on our own ground; but I regret
+that the hands of neighbours are against them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+In Scotland the badger is now rare. In the north-eastern counties, where
+till recently he was to be met with in every wild woodland and forest
+district, he has entirely vanished. In Ross-shire and in the west he is
+occasionally found in places where the wild cat and marten are making
+their last stand against the keeper and his exterminating engine, the
+steel trap. In Ireland the badger is still found in the Wild West. I
+have come upon him in Connemara, near the Killery harbour, and have
+heard of him in Kerry and other counties.</p>
+
+<p>As to the distribution of the badger in Ireland I quote the following
+interesting letters from the <i>Field</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Lepus Hibernicus' may be glad to know that the badger is still fairly
+common in the neighbourhood of Clonmel. The country people, who know
+them better under the name of 'earth-dogs,' in distinction to
+'water-dogs,' or otters, not unfrequently catch them in one way or
+another, and offer them for sale. Fortunately for the badger the demand
+is extremely limited."&mdash;Badger (Clonmel).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> "Permit me to coincide with
+'Lepus Hibernicus' respecting the plentifulness of the badger in
+Ireland. Some years since I was on a large estate in Co. Clare, and
+badgers were abundant on the domain and the adjoining property; I also
+found them numerous in the wilds of Galway. I have found and killed them
+in many parts of England and Wales, but have seen and trapped far more
+in the west of Ireland."&mdash;J. J. M. "Your correspondent, 'Lepus
+Hibernicus,' in the <i>Field</i> of November 5, mentions that badgers are by
+no means uncommon in Ireland. I am in the west of Cornwall, and there
+are any amount here, a great deal too plentiful to please me, as I am
+sure they do a lot of harm to rabbits and game. I found the parts of a
+fowl in a field, evidently killed by a badger, as there was a trail not
+a foot away, and also a hole scratched, which could be the work of none
+other than a badger. I had two very big ones brought to me alive last
+week. They were caught by setting a noose of thin rope in their run. I
+should like to know a good way to exterminate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> them, as, though I shoot
+over a great deal of ground, I have never seen one out in daytime, but
+their trail is everywhere."&mdash;H. J. W. "The badger is by no means rare in
+the west of Clare, where I have trapped several."&mdash;A. H. G. "I beg to
+inform 'Lepus Hibernicus' that badgers are by no means scarce in this
+place."&mdash;A. R. Warren, Warren's Court, Lisarda, Cork. "The badger in
+this part of the Co. Cork is certainly not rare&mdash;Owen, Sheehy, Coosane,
+and Goulacullen mountains, with the adjoining ranges, afford shelter to
+a goodly number. Farm hands occasionally capture unwary ones, and offer
+them for sale as pets, or to test the mettle of the national terrier, or
+to be converted into bacon. A badger's ham is often seen suspended from
+the rafter of a farmer's kitchen."&mdash;J. Wagner (Dunmanway, Co. Cork).</p>
+
+<p>The counties in which I have had most acquaintance with the badger have
+been Radnorshire, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and
+Cornwall, but perhaps most of my experience has been gained in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+last-named county, as far as digging for him is concerned; whilst it is
+at home in Cleveland that I have watched him for nearly twenty years,
+and gained some knowledge of his mode of life and habits. I am not sure
+whether there are not a few still left in the Cheviots and the districts
+of the Upper Tyne and Tweed. Up till about 1850 they were to be found on
+the Cleveland hills, or rather on their wooded sides and in the "gills."
+The last place where I heard of them being hunted was in the ravine and
+woods of Kilton.</p>
+
+<p>A badger's earth or warren is properly and generally called a "set" or
+"cete." They vary in respect of size, number of entrances, depth of
+galleries, and choice of site almost as much as rabbit-holes. Sometimes
+badgers will find sufficient room in rocks to make a home, and it is
+extraordinary the excavations they occasionally make in apparently solid
+rock. Usually, however, they select some softer material in which to
+make their underground passages and chambers. They will choose a quiet
+hillside away from man's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> habitation, amongst the whin bushes, or in the
+woods near a stream or small runner of water. Such a "set," if long
+established, will penetrate through earth, clay, and sub-soil, to some
+stratum of shale, or sand, or loose rock. Some of the galleries and
+chambers will be at a great distance from the surface, and some at an
+enormous depth. When a new earth is made I have always found the badger
+appropriate the holes of rabbits, and proceed to excavate, enlarge, and
+open them out. This operation of opening a new earth takes place
+constantly in the spring-time, great masses of material being thrown
+out; but as often as not the new house is abandoned before completed,
+and the subsequent labours of the family are devoted to repairing,
+enlarging, and making new front or back doors to the old place. In
+Cornwall I once tried my hand with my brother, some strong Cornishmen,
+and a team of terriers, at a very innocent-looking badger "set" situated
+in a level field. There were but three holes, and these not very far
+apart. The farmer told us that there had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> been badgers there all his
+life, and no one had ever been able to dig one out. This rather
+stimulated us than otherwise, and we had in the course of a few hours
+dug a trench some six feet deep, and were nearing the sounds of the
+subterranean conflict, which had been sustained by the terriers, when
+suddenly we found that we were above the sound, and we sank a shaft down
+three feet from the bottom of our trench, to find galleries and chambers
+in all directions. The battle had by this time moved, and we were in
+despair at the prospect of following on the level with a depth of nine
+feet of surface soil to be lifted in every direction we turned. I was
+listening at the bottom of the trench, having penetrated to the third
+storey of this underground barrack, when I distinctly heard the
+"bump-bump" of the badger below me. My companions came down and listened
+too, and there was not the slightest doubt that there was a fourth
+storey and labyrinth of passages some three or four feet below us, and
+for anything we knew another beyond. The day was far spent, the task was
+impossible,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> and the rest of our time was devoted to getting the
+terriers out, and making as good a retreat as we could before the
+victorious enemy.</p>
+
+<p>I should think this "set" was hundreds of years old, and some of the
+passages, the farmer told us, were a hundred yards long! As a rule a
+badger's hole descends rapidly at first, and then may branch into any
+number of by-ways and subterranean galleries. Whichever route you
+follow, however, you invariably come to a chamber or "oven," which is
+generally a sort of vaulted hall, where four ways meet, and which is, or
+has been, the living-room of the family at some previous time. Where
+there is an old-established "set" it is difficult to drive the badgers
+permanently away from it. They may leave it for a while from fancy, or
+because of disturbance, but they will certainly return.</p>
+
+<p>The badger and his wife have a regular spring cleaning after the winter
+is over, and about March and April a cart-load of winter bedding,
+rubbish, earth, and sweepings will be thrown in a few nights outside the
+front<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> door. There is generally the old bedding left in one or two of
+the big chambers for the lady who is to be brought to bed in February,
+March, or April; and there is another turn-out after this interesting
+event has been accomplished. About the middle of June, in July and
+August, and as late as October and November, an extraordinary amount of
+fresh bedding will be taken in. On summer evenings I have watched the
+badgers at work, but regret that I cannot substantiate the following
+description:&mdash;"Badgers when they Earth, after by digging they have
+<a name="entered" id="entered"></a><ins title="Original has entred">entered</ins> a good depth, for the clearing of the Earth out, one
+of them falleth on the back, and the other layeth Earth on the belly,
+and so taking his hinder feet in the mouth draweth the Belly-laden
+Badger out of the Hole or Cave; and having disburdened herself,
+re-enters and doth the like till all be finished."</p>
+
+<p>No, this is not how it is done, though it is a curious sight to see the
+real thing. The badger will come out, take a look round, and sit awhile
+close to the mouth of the hole.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> He will then shuffle about and get
+further from the hole. You will watch him descend into some
+bracken-covered hollow, and will see nothing more of him for awhile.
+Then you will hear him gently pushing and shoving and grunting, and know
+that he is very busy over something. He will reappear bumping along
+backwards, a heap of bracken and of grass or old straw, left from a
+pheasant feed, under his belly, and encircled by his arms and fore-feet.
+He will continue this most undignified and curious mode of retrogression
+to the earth, and will disappear tail first down his hole, still hugging
+and tugging at his burden.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very pleasant to behold them when they gather materials for their
+Couch, as straw, leaves, moss, and such-like; for with their Feet and
+their Head they will wrap as much together as a man will carry under his
+arm, and will make shift to get into their Cells and Couches" (<i>The
+Gentleman's Recreation</i>).</p>
+
+<p>I have not seen a badger make more than two such excursions by daylight,
+but have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> no doubt that after dark a considerable number of such
+journeys may be accomplished. For weeks together, on any morning, you
+may see the litter of bracken and grass strewing the way to his home and
+down the various entrances.</p>
+
+<p>And now let me again, with all possible respect, put some of our
+scientific friends right. It is not often that an amateur can; but a man
+who is not able to tell you everything, as these learned men do, about
+every living creature, may from a country life and experience be able to
+correct some errors in respect of one animal at least. M. Buffon, the
+immortal and wonderful natural historian, tells us that the badger is a
+solitary animal. This is the reverse of truth; he is less solitary than
+the fox. He is fond of company; he is monogamous, and clings closely and
+faithfully to his own wife. With badgers, as with the human race, the
+sexes are not precisely equal in numbers, and often, from the force of
+circumstances, a badger has to remain a celibate, but he is not a
+bachelor by choice. He may become a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> widower, but in either case he will
+travel far to seek a partner to share his shelter and his lot. It is not
+altogether rare to find an old solitary dog badger, who has loved and
+lost, or taken in late age to a hermit's cell; but he, as often as not,
+when he has failed to secure the companionship of the gentler sex, has
+found some other male to share his home, when they can live comfortably
+<i>en garçon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do the married pair shun the society of their kind. I have often
+seen large badger "sets" almost as full of badgers as a warren is of
+rabbits. One evening, near my house, I waited an hour of midge-plagued
+time to watch the badgers come out from a small "set," and was rewarded
+by seeing a procession of seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single
+hole, and I had them all in full view for something like twenty minutes.
+As this was in July they could hardly be one family. They were every one
+more than a year old, and a badger's family is usually two in number,
+sometimes three, and never more than four; and this last is exceedingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+rare in my experience. In no sense, therefore, is the badger solitary.
+Indeed I have actually known myself several instances of a badger and
+fox living in apparent amity in the same earth, whilst I hardly ever saw
+a badger "earth" that was not either itself or the immediate vicinity
+tenanted by rabbits. As to the consistency of any friendship that exists
+between badgers and foxes and rabbits, I shall have more to say later
+on. I have, however, taken a badger and rabbit out of the same hole
+lying side by side. The badger is said to be the protector of the
+rabbit. He does not altogether deserve this title, and the rabbit enjoys
+the immunity in a badger's earth chiefly from the fact that the badger
+cannot follow it in the smaller holes without digging, an effort which
+in his estimation is, as a rule, not worth the candle.</p>
+
+<p>Buffon dwells on the cleanliness of the badger. He certainly is not the
+stinking animal he is accused of being. His house and himself are as a
+rule bright and cleanly looking, and it is only when in confinement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+and deprived of the sanitary arrangements to which he is accustomed,
+that he becomes offensive. Writers are not correct in saying that he
+never deposits his dung in his earth, but as a rule he does not, and his
+habit is to go some little distance from his home, dig a hole, and there
+leave his excrement. He will use the same hole for a few days, and then
+cover it up with earth and make a new one. There is a smell about a
+badger "earth," but it is not disagreeable, and nothing like so rank and
+strong as that of a fox's. He is, however, often troubled with lice and
+ticks, so that it is desirable when your dogs have been to ground
+carefully to wash them. But in this respect a badger is not worse than
+sheep and goats, and with such a coat as he has it is no wonder that it
+is sometimes tenanted. The same distinguished authority states that the
+badger produces its young in summer, but I have never known this happen.
+March is the usual month, and the rule is not earlier than February nor
+later than April. A naturalist at Cambridge told me that he knew of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+badger bitch that was many months in confinement (I think he said
+eighteen months), and gave birth to cubs&mdash;but I was not convinced of the
+accuracy of his statement that she had never had access to one of her
+kind. It is only fair to mention that Vyner, in his <i>Notitia Venatica</i>,
+states that "It is a fact perhaps not generally known, nevertheless
+curious, that badgers go twelve months with young. This fact I <i>learned
+from a neighbour of mine in Warwickshire</i>, who some years ago dug out in
+the spring a sow badger. She was confined in an outhouse for twelve
+months, at about which period she produced one young one. During her
+confinement it was impossible for her to have been visited by a male."</p>
+
+<p>That an animal of this size should go with young for such a period is so
+extraordinary, and so great an exception to the ordinary provisions of
+nature, that the theory requires much greater support than mere hearsay
+evidence. If it were a fact, or if it were the rule, the evidence to
+support the theory of twelve months' gestation should be overwhelming,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+considering the number of badgers that are in confinement. I have had
+many in confinement for long periods, and have never known them to give
+any evidence in support of this theory. I have kept a pair for a long
+period, but, like many other wild animals in confinement, they never
+bred. All sorts of theories exist as to the period of gestation in
+badgers, but I think I shall be very near the mark when I say that they
+go with young about nine weeks, and I conceive that the mistake made by
+those who have thought that they go over a year is due to the fact,
+which I have noticed, that a pair of badgers do not breed every year. I
+cannot decide whether there is any precise rule, but am inclined to
+think that they breed once every two years. There are so many accounts
+of single badgers kept in confinement bringing forth young after a much
+longer period of gestation that it appears possible that the female has
+the power known to be possessed by the Roe-deer doe of postponing the
+operation of parturition for a considerable time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+The badger is not by nature a ferocious animal, though the female will
+repel with the greatest savagery any approach when she has young, but so
+will a hen with chickens. The temperament of the badger is a gentle,
+shrinking one. No animal prefers a more quiet life, loving a warm bed in
+a dry dark corner of earth or rocks. He loves to sleep and meditate in
+peace for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. He lies not far
+within his entrance hall during the spring and summer, and on a hot day
+he will sometimes come to the mouth of his hole. In the evening, in June
+or July, he will come outside, sit looking into the wood or shuffle
+round the bushes, stretch himself against the tree-stems, or have a
+clumsy romp with his wife and little ones; and when the daylight dies he
+will hurry off, rushing through the covert for his nightly ramble. In
+the summer months he will travel as far as six miles from home, but he
+is in bed again an hour before sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>It is only at this time of the year that he can be hunted above ground.
+This can be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> done with a few beagles or harriers on a moonlight night,
+when, finding him in the open, they will give a merry chase and fine
+cry, and a run of several miles without a check. If his earths are
+stopped, and he finds no other refuge, he will be brought to bay. In
+some districts I have known sacks put into the mouths of the most used
+holes of a set, the open end of each sack having a running noose pegged
+into the ground, thus providing an astonishing reception on his return
+as he charges in, disturbed or pursued in his midnight ramble. By this
+means he is taken alive and unhurt, being bagged and secured in his
+attempt to enter. At other times of the year, when the days are short
+and the nights longer, he comes out later in the evening, waits for a
+moment at the mouth of his earth, takes a preliminary sniff round, and
+then rushes off at the top speed into the covert.</p>
+
+<p>The badger is easily domesticated if brought up by hand, and proves an
+interesting and charming companion. I had at one time two that I could
+do anything with,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> and which followed me so closely that they would bump
+against my boots each step I took, and come and snuggle in under my coat
+when I sat down. I was very much attached to them, but having to leave
+for the London season, I came home after a prolonged absence to find
+that they had reverted to their natural disposition, and had forgotten
+him who had been a foster-parent to them. As I could not fondle them
+without a pair of hedging-gloves on, and they no longer walked at my
+heel, I made them a home in the woods, where the thought of their
+happiness has helped me to bear my loss.</p>
+
+<p>Many interesting stories are told of tame badgers. Here is one taken
+from the <i>Field</i>: "A few months ago, a farmer in the Cotswolds unearthed
+a badger and one youngster about two months old, which were sent to Mr.
+Barry Burge, Northleach, who only kept the former a few weeks, when she
+died. The orphan was petted very much by its owner. In a short time it
+would follow Mr. Burge through the fields and streets, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> answer to
+the call like a dog. It is an amusing sight to see the badger along with
+its master riding a bicycle. A short time ago Mr. Burge had a fox cub,
+which he has succeeded in taming. This fox has taken a great fancy to an
+Irish terrier, with which she plays continually. The badger, which is
+now about seven months old, is loose about the house at times, but
+generally spends most of its time in company with the fox, to which it
+is greatly attached, all sleeping snugly together."&mdash;G. W. Duckett,
+Northleach, R.S.O., Gloucestershire.</p>
+
+<p>M. le Masson gives a pretty account of his tame badger, which, though it
+loses much in translation, I give in English. "I brought up and kept for
+more than two years a female badger, which died at last from obesity.
+She had been taken from her mother when only eight days old and suckled
+by a Normandy bitch, which had already reared me some wolf whelps.
+'Grisette,' as she was named, was, like all her kind, omnivorous; meat,
+beetles, fruits, certain kinds of vegetables, in fact, all and
+everything was welcome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> to her healthy appetite. When out walking in the
+country, where she always readily followed me, she would unearth rats,
+moles, and young rabbits, which she could scent at the bottom of their
+holes. In spite of her thorough domesticity, I never succeeded in
+overcoming her antipathy to dogs, and more especially to cats, which she
+chased most viciously did they dare to enter the kitchen where she
+reigned as queen; and where, such was her sensitiveness to cold, she had
+made her bed against the wall in the chimney corner. Here in winter,
+buried in her furs, she slept curled up for whole days together. But
+which of us is without a fault? A little greedy without being actually
+voracious, sweet Grisette sometimes ventured on to the stone-work of the
+cooking-stove, and from there was able to discover from which of the
+saucepans was exhaled the most savoury odour, and never did she make a
+mistake on that score!"</p>
+
+<p>Du Fouilloux states in his <i>Venerie</i>:&mdash;"Je ay veu aux blereaux prendre
+deuant moy les petis cochons de laict, lesquelz ilz tray-noient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> tout
+vifz en leur terrier. C'est vne[**une?] chose certaine qu'ilz en sont
+plus friandz que de toutes autres chairs: car si on passe vn[**un?]
+carnage de porceau par dessus leurs terriers, ilz ne faudront iamais de
+sorter pour y aller."</p>
+
+<p>The badger is credited with a special love for pork. I have seen a
+statement in an old volume of the <i>Gentleman's Recreation</i>, in which the
+writer refers to the taste of the badger for pork. "They love
+Hog's-flesh above any other; for take but a piece of Pork and train it
+over a badger's Burrow, if he be within, you shall quickly see him
+appear without."</p>
+
+<p>Badgers are omnivorous. In their wild state their food is principally
+roots and insects&mdash;they are especially fond of beetles and such
+creatures as are to be found just below the surface of the ground, or
+under the decaying dung of cattle. The natural history books say they
+eat frogs. This may be true, but I have not observed it. I have tried
+badgers in confinement with all sorts of insects and grubs, but I never
+could get them to touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> slugs or worms. They are carnivorous, and eat
+mice, rats, voles, and moles. They will take a rabbit out of a trap,
+turn it inside out, and eat all the meat, leaving the skin behind,
+turned neatly with the fur inside. They are also fond of very young
+rabbits, and will dig a shaft through several feet of solid earth direct
+on to the nest. But when this has been stated, nearly all has been said
+with regard to their propensity to damage in game coverts. I am
+supported by other observers in this opinion; for instance, a recent
+writer in the <i>Field</i> who says:&mdash;"In reply to E. T. D'Egmont's inquiry
+about catching badgers, I have never found them do much harm to the
+nests of winged game; but they are death on rabbits, and much resemble a
+fox in finding a young one appetizing. Their skins would make good
+waistcoats, but, apart from that, I would not destroy them upon any
+property of my own, because they do so much more good than harm in
+divers ways. We have a small property in my family, where foxes and
+badgers lie up together in close proximity to a rabbit warren, upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+inhabitants of which they feed. It is a spot practically unknown to the
+outward gaze of man, as it is difficult of access; and I should fancy
+that any one attempting to attack their stronghold would meet with a
+stubborn resistance. Badgers mostly go seeking for food during the
+night-time. Where they abound, one occasionally meets them walking
+quietly along a path, with their snout low down, and occasionally giving
+a kind of grunt like a mongoose. They are very fond of honey. A bag
+pegged back over the entrance to their holes is a good way of catching
+them."</p>
+
+<p>They do not hunt for rabbits or game like a fox or cat, and though there
+are undoubtedly instances of their taking partridge and pheasant eggs,
+in my experience I have never known it done by those around me, nor from
+other places where they have ample opportunity of doing so. I have known
+a pheasant rear a young brood on an earth tenanted by badgers; but,
+curiously enough, I have known a similar case on a fox's earth,
+containing a vixen and cubs, and I cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> defend the general character
+of a fox in regard to game. Still it may be taken that a badger, though
+occasionally eating rabbits and rarely eggs, does not hunt for game,
+ground or feathered, or do a hundredth part of the damage done by a fox
+or a cat. There have always been more rabbits, hares, and pheasants in a
+hollow near my house, where there is a large colony of badgers, than in
+any other part of the coverts. The badger has a special weakness for
+wild honey, and the grubs of wasps and humble bees. The wildest and most
+unconciliatory badgers I have ever had in confinement would come out and
+eat a wasp's nest, and they will hunt every bank and hedgerow in July
+and August, routing out every wasp's and hornet's nest in the
+country-side. A keeper told me that upon one occasion, when he was
+walking along the covert edges in summer-time about nine o'clock in the
+evening, his attention was arrested by a curious chapping, champing
+noise, and looking over the fence he saw an old badger with his head in
+a huge wasp's nest hanging in a bramble bush, and he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> crunching up
+and eating with the greatest gusto the wasps and grubs, quite undeterred
+by the thousand angry insects that covered his head and body. In truth,
+I must admit that while he is thus useful, he has been known to enter a
+garden and upset the hives and purloin the honey, being as fond of it as
+his larger cousins, the bears.</p>
+
+<p>I must also bring another charge against him. Let me introduce this
+painful subject by giving the following correspondence from the <i>Field</i>
+newspaper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wilfred writes&mdash;'I shall be obliged if you will allow me to ask your
+readers whether they have known old badgers to kill fox cubs. Last year
+our M.F.H. gave a neighbouring keeper a litter of cubs. He put them into
+a natural empty fox-earth, and kept them shut in until they had got
+fairly on their feed, and were quite at home. When he opened the earth,
+and allowed them to come out, they played about, and all went well for
+two or three days, when he found one at a little distance from the mouth
+of the earth dead, with its skull smashed in,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> and very much bitten
+about the head and neck. He lost the lot in the same way in a few days.
+He thought an old badger or fox killed his cubs. About this time I got
+five cubs, and put them into an empty artificial fox-earth. All went
+well with them for some time after they played out, when the keeper
+reported finding one about twenty yards from the earth dead, and killed
+after the same fashion as my neighbour's cubs, and I too lost mine. In
+the same artificial earth I had a natural litter this season, and the
+cubs played out well; but on the keeper telling me he did not think they
+were there now, I went to examine the earth, found the foxes gone, and
+the earth occupied by an old badger. I had a litter of fox cubs in the
+deer park here, where I live, and all went well with them until ten days
+ago, when one was picked up dead, killed in the same manner as those
+last year, and another was found dead yesterday. I feel quite certain
+myself that they were killed by an old badger or an old fox, for I am
+sure if killed by dogs they would not smash the skull and neck. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> shall
+be glad if any one can enlighten me on this subject.'"</p>
+
+<p>In reply to "Wilfred" there were several letters, among which were the
+following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Sir,&mdash;Undoubtedly; every one that they can get near, and more
+especially hand-reared cubs that have not got the old foxes to
+protect them. I was first told this by old Jem Hills, the
+well-known huntsman of the Heythrop, in his latter years; and
+subsequently I had positive proof of what he said. On one
+occasion a man brought a fine half-grown cub to my house which
+he had picked up dead in the road he came along. It was bitten
+most severely through and behind the shoulder, and I at once
+remarked to a friend that was with me, 'That is the work of a
+badger.' On going down to an earth where I knew there was a
+natural litter, we found tracks of a badger all about the place,
+as if he had been hunting the cubs. Having at the time eight
+cubs that I was hand-rearing in an artificial drain, I thought
+it was high time to look after them, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> though regularly fed,
+I did not always watch to see whether they all came to feed.
+However, I did so that evening, and only two came, and these
+looked very wild and scared. I then searched the plantation, and
+picked up four of my cubs killed quite recently, and bitten in
+the same savage way. A few weeks after we killed a big boar
+badger in the drain. Several years later, I was again rearing
+some hand-bred cubs, and everything went well until they were a
+good size, when one morning I found one of them killed,
+evidently by a badger; and I eventually took four more of them,
+and the others were all driven away. This badger beat me for
+some little time, but I got him at last. Though old badgers and
+foxes are often found in the same earth, more frequently when
+one of the latter has been run to ground by hounds, yet, as a
+rule, they give each other wide berths. If your correspondent
+'Wilfred' wishes to save his cubs, let him kill every badger as
+soon as possible."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>"Sir,&mdash;Replying to 'Wilfred's' question, 'Do badgers kill fox
+cubs?' I cannot say they do, because there are no badgers in
+this district; but having at different times had young foxes
+killed in the way he describes, namely, bitten in the head, I
+can assure him that it is done by an old dog fox. Should he wish
+for further information, I refer him to Mr. John Douglas, Royal
+Hotel, Pudding Chare, Newcastle-on-Tyne, who will tell him of
+the experience he gained when at Clumber, under the Duke of
+Newcastle."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>"Sir,&mdash;I may tell 'Wilfred' that I have never known old badgers
+kill fox cubs, though I have studied the habits of both for
+nearly forty years. No doubt an old vixen, with no cubs of her
+own, killed his; the dog fox will not do this. Indeed, he will
+cater for all the cubs of his own get, but a strange vixen is
+very apt to kill any cubs which have no mother of their own. I
+have known a terrier bitch kill a litter of foxhound puppies,
+and one of my Irish terriers will kill puppies if she has the
+chance. As to the 'natural' litter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> which 'Wilfred' found gone,
+they had merely been shifted by the vixen; as soon as the cubs
+get able to travel they are always shifted. Last year I had two
+tame wild ducks sitting in a hedge. A badger passed regularly
+within a yard of them every night, but they were undisturbed.
+This year a fox took one of them just before it hatched. I was
+sorry to read the other day in the <i>Field</i> an account of two old
+and four cub badgers having been dug out in Gloucestershire.
+There is surely no sport in this, and the badgers are destitute
+of grease now, whereas at Michaelmas they are fat enough to
+provide grease for all the rheumatic people in the parish. I
+like to catch one with my terriers when the harvest moon shines.
+Sometimes I get up in a convenient tree near the earth and watch
+the badgers feeding on the crazy roots. How fond they are of the
+wild bees' honey, and also of wasps' nests. Let me advise
+'Wilfred' to read the exhaustive and interesting account given
+in a letter to the <i>Times</i> (October 24, 1877), and quoted in
+<i>Cassell's Natural History</i>, vol. ii. It thus concludes&mdash;'The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+badgers and the foxes are not unfriendly, and last spring a
+litter of cubs was brought forth very near the badgers; but
+their mother removed them after they had grown familiar, as she
+probably thought they were showing themselves more than was
+prudent.' Mr. Ellis of Loughborough was the author of the
+letter, and he had rare opportunities of studying the habits of
+badgers."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>I am loth to do it, but wishing to be an impartial historian, am
+compelled to state that the badger is capable of vulpicide. As a rule he
+can put up with an occasional lodger of the fox family, and live happily
+with him, and from his superior qualities as an architect of
+subterranean dwellings, he is on the whole an encourager of foxes. He
+often gives up his spacious apartments to a vixen in the spring, and
+submits to eviction. A fox will often take possession of a badger's
+earth, new or old; and in order to persuade foxes to take to a
+particular covert, no surer method can be pursued than to get badgers to
+make earths when they are required. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> even a badger's patience can be
+exhausted, as the following history of my own experience will show. I
+would premise, however, that I do not credit the oft-repeated story that
+the fox gets rid of the badger by leaving his evacuations in the
+badger's earth. Being the less and weaker animal, all a fox does is
+allowed on sufferance. My suspicions of a badger's capability to wage
+war on foxes were first aroused some years ago. The badgers had made a
+fine double set of earths on the north side, of a hill in a neighbouring
+larch wood, where no effort on my part to get foxes to breed and stay
+had succeeded. No sooner, however, was a colony of badgers established
+than foxes haunted the holes and covert. In a succession of years there
+was as certain to be a litter of fox cubs in the badger earth as a
+sunrise on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>What happened each spring was that the foxes and badgers frequented both
+sets indiscriminately till about March. When the vixen lay in the
+badgers abandoned the set of holes where she was, and restricted
+themselves to the other set some twenty yards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> distant. Year after year
+the fox cubs prospered and grew up, till one summer the keeper found a
+fox cub in a field with his head bitten in two and terribly worried. I
+did not know how to account for it. I watched the vixen and the other
+cubs one evening to see that they were all right, and saw them, but
+found they had left the earth and were in the covert. For two years all
+went well and the foxes were unmolested, and then occurred something
+that gave me a clue to the death of the cub three years before. Two
+vixens lay in at the badgers' earth, and brought up their families of
+seven and four respectively, till they were about one-third grown. There
+were then to my knowledge at least four badgers and twelve foxes in
+these two earths. On one or two occasions the stillness of the night was
+broken by the veriest pandemonium at the earth, but still I did not
+think much of it. At the end of the hunting season, at the end of April,
+when the cubs were seven or eight weeks old, and a fortnight after the
+hounds had been through the coverts, I found the largest and finest of
+the vixens dead, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> thought that, in spite of the earths being open,
+she must have been chopped by the hounds. A post-mortem examination, as
+well as the improbability of a vixen with cubs being out in the early
+part of the day, convinced me that she had not been killed by hounds.
+She seemed to have been badly bitten through the legs and thighs but not
+on the body. From this time the other vixen and all the cubs left the
+badgers' earths and remained in the covert. It was on this occasion that
+an attempt to find out how many badgers there were in these earths was
+rewarded by seeing seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single hole.
+It was rough, no doubt, that the badgers should be invaded by two large
+families of smelling foxes, and no doubt their patience had become
+exhausted. Still I could not tolerate this kind of behaviour, and so I
+had a dig at them, took two old ones out, and transported them to
+Scotland. The following year there was peace and fox cubs again. The
+year after, however, the vixen and her cubs took off into the covert
+very early after another bit of Bank Holiday<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> business, at a time of
+night when all respectable people were quietly in bed. And yet all
+through the year foxes are in the earth, and this spring, as heretofore,
+a litter of cubs has been raised, but removed to another earth at a safe
+distance from the badgers. I have never heard of badgers taking the
+offensive against foxes; they will never molest a fox or vixen unless
+their earth is invaded, and in my case if I had had no badgers in this
+covert I should have had no foxes; and whilst it is annoying that the
+fox cubs and vixen should be driven out, and perhaps occasionally
+killed, the drawback is slight when it is considered that as long as
+there are badgers there will be a litter of cubs, which nine times out
+of ten will get safely off.</p>
+
+<p>There are every now and then albino badgers reported, but I have never
+seen one alive. I think, however, they are more subject to albinism than
+most animals. I do not know of a case of melanism.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>White Badger at Overton, Hants.</i>&mdash;While digging for badgers on April
+30, we came across two dog badgers in the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> earth, one of which was
+quite white, the colour of a white ferret, with pink eyes.
+Unfortunately, the terriers punished him so much he had to be destroyed.
+I have helped to dig out a great many of these animals, but never saw
+nor heard of a white one before."&mdash;T. P.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+<a name="part_iii" id="part_iii"></a>PART III</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are several methods by which the badger can be taken alive, or
+killed, with ease. I am familiar with several successful ways of
+trapping him. The reader, if he is not aware of these, must not expect
+me to enlighten him, as my object in writing is to arouse an interest in
+his preservation, not to facilitate his destruction. It may be as well
+to state, however, that the inhuman engine, the steel trap (by which so
+many of the birds and beasts that frequented the wild woods of England
+and Scotland have been exterminated) is an instrument that arouses the
+suspicion of a badger at once, and he is as clever in avoiding it as an
+old-fashioned rat. The badger if caught in a steel trap will frequently
+bite his leg or foot clean off. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> my opinion there are two legitimate
+methods of hunting the badger. First, that of a straight-forward attack
+on his fortress; and should it be an old-established earth, it may be
+the end of the longest day will not see the battle ended. There are, of
+course, the fortunes of war&mdash;a lucky engagement, a wrong turn on the
+part of the defender, a successful trench quickly cutting off his
+retreat&mdash;which may deliver him unexpectedly into your hands; or the
+enemy may outwit you altogether, conducting a masterful retreat, with
+gallant sorties on the dogs, and by continually changing his front drive
+you to abandon works, trenches, and operations that have cost great
+labour and time; thus you may be left with a tired and wounded pack of
+terriers, exhausted sappers, and the badger, having blocked and
+barricaded his retreat with soil, stones, and sand, is lost. The war
+thus made is an equal one: you attack him on his own ground in his
+fortress where he is acquainted with every passage, gallery, and
+casement; he is armed to the teeth and armour-plated, and can drive a
+road<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> forward, downward, or upward with extraordinary rapidity. It is
+true you may have many terriers, but he has an advantage over your
+forces. Only one of your dogs can engage at a time, and the badger has
+the advantage of weight, size, knowledge of the ground, and familiarity
+with the dark&mdash;in fact, in every respect except those of courage and
+endurance, which in some terriers may equal his own. The other method,
+less sure, depends on taking the badger off his guard, and is more in
+the character of an ambuscade under cover of night. When the badgers are
+away from home you block up their earths, placing sacks with running
+nooses in the mouth, in the most frequented holes. Station one of your
+party near the "set," and you may either take a small pack of hounds and
+draw the country for a few miles round, and hunt him like a fox, getting
+a run across country and a fine cry; or you may beat the neighbouring
+coverts with men and dogs of any description that are trained to hunt
+the badger.</p>
+
+<p>In the following, taken from an article<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> which appeared in a newspaper,
+there is a good account of night hunting.</p>
+
+<p>"Owing to his shy and retiring habits, rather than to the scarcity of
+the animal, probably less is known about the badger than about any wild
+animal left in England at the present time. There is a prevalent notion
+that the badger is exceedingly rare, and also that he is harmless;
+neither of these ideas is quite correct. In the west especially the
+badger is fairly common, but escapes notice owing to his retiring
+disposition. Whether he does harm to feathered game or not is a moot
+point, but his tracks have been distinctly noticed round plundered
+nests; it is certain, however, that he does great damage to ground game
+by digging out 'stops' of young rabbits in the spring and summer.</p>
+
+<p>"When hunted after the fashion generally adopted in the west, he affords
+excellent sport to those who are prepared to face a long tramp and the
+loss of some of their night's rest. The prosaic way of digging them out
+of the earth involves much labour, and has in it no element of sport;
+while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> attempting to catch badgers in traps is about as feasible as
+trying to catch birds by putting salt on their tails. Driving them into
+sacks fixed in the earth is unsatisfactory, as a good game dog is
+necessary to press the badger hard, or he will turn from the earth and
+seek shelter elsewhere; while, if you have a good dog, the sacks are
+unnecessary except for the reception of the badger when caught by the
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>"The paraphernalia of the chase are simple, namely, a good dog, a pair
+of badger-tongs, and a sack. A really good dog is very difficult to
+obtain; the favourite kind is a cross-bred bull-terrier, about forty
+pounds in weight; pure-bred bull-terriers, for some reason or other, do
+not seem to give satisfaction. The 'tongs' have wooden handles, and iron
+heads with blunt teeth for grasping the badger when held by the dog. For
+a successful hunt it is necessary to observe which way the badger
+travels from the earth. A favourite spot is the slope of a hill, or
+high-lying fields, where they may be easily tracked by the 'roots,'
+<i>i.e.</i> small holes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> which they scratch in the ground in search of beetles
+and roots of various kinds. They rarely descend into low-lying meadows,
+except to drink. Choose a starlight night with a slight breeze blowing,
+and approach the earth up the wind. Do not hurry your dog; if he knows
+his work, he will range freely, but he often takes a long time to puzzle
+out the track. If you miss him, go on slowly in the direction in which
+you last saw him, often stopping to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"'What was that?' The dry sticks crack in a hedge far below you. 'Hark!
+two sharp eager barks; what does it mean?' Why, that Grip is wheeling
+out in a half-circle to gain slightly on the badger, and then to dash in
+and get him by the head. Run now as you never ran before. Head over
+heels into a ditch; never mind, up and on again&mdash;the best dog can't hold
+a badger for ever. There they are out in the open, Grip with a tight
+hold of the badger by the side of the head, with his legs tucked back
+out of harm's way. Grasp him with the tongs as near the neck as
+possible. Take off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> the dog, some one. Hold the bag. Hoist our
+grey-coated friend into the air, and lower him into the sack; he weighs
+at least thirty pounds. The dog is hardly marked, and you haven't torn
+more than three rents in your nether garments getting through that last
+thorn hedge. Altogether, every one agrees that it was a satisfactory
+little run.</p>
+
+<p>"The old English sheep-dog I have known do well for the other method.
+The badger when pursued makes straight for home, blunders headlong into
+the hole, only to find that his efforts to get in are closing the mouth
+of the sack, that retreat or fighting are alike in vain, and that he is
+an imprisoned bagman, without having struck a blow in self-defence. It
+is not uncommon for a badger thus pursued to stand at bay, when a good
+dog may keep him in play, or hold on, till you come up and secure him.
+No doubt there is amusement and excitement in this moonlight chase, and
+to some it is preferable to the arduous labour with pick, spade, axe,
+and terrier."</p>
+
+<p>To my mind, however, there is something more interesting and exciting in
+the long-sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> conflict and labour of the latter, for which you
+require perseverance, wit, patience, and courage on the part of man and
+terrier. The courage and endurance that a good terrier will display when
+need requires before such a foe, will fill his owner's heart with joy
+and pride. A good terrier is a veritable treasure; the price of a sure,
+game, and determined one is far above rubies. Picture what it means for
+a small terrier to enter into the bowels of the earth to find, to cope
+with, and for long hours in dust and darkness in the tortuous maze to
+keep up an unequal fight with an enormously superior foe, whose grunts
+and clattering teeth add terror to his charges down the echoing ways.
+Yet I have had not a few that, hour after hour, on their backs or their
+sides, would lie up to a badger, keeping him cornered, and continuously
+give tongue with no voice to direct them. Should the badger charge, such
+a terrier would rather die than let him leave the corner to which he has
+been driven, and will return fighting and facing his huge opponent,
+driving him inch by inch into the <i>cul de sac</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> caring neither for bite
+nor wounds, and making noise enough to let you know where the battle
+rages. It is no part of his duty to tackle the badger. A good terrier
+knows this, and will only resort to his teeth should the badger attempt
+to force a passage. If it comes to close quarters, such a terrier will
+draw back his fore-legs under his body, take the attack full in the
+face, and trust to seizing the badger by the neck. A badger when
+attacked generally bites upwards, <i>i. e.</i> he lowers his head and turns
+the back of his head downwards. Nothing makes the heart beat faster
+than, with head to the earth, to hear the din of this subterranean
+warfare carried along the dark galleries to the day. You have sent in
+one of your best terriers; he has tried by cajolery and caresses, by
+cries, by straining at his chain to be allowed the honourable
+distinction of first blood. You have dispatched him with your blessing,
+and he has quickly and silently started on his journey into the unknown.
+You listen to him forcing his passage, drawing himself round corners,
+scratching away some accumulation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> or fall from the roof, and hear his
+eager panting as he winds his foe. Presently you hear a low sharp bark,
+then another, then two or three more, next a bumping, thumping noise; it
+is the badger, who has waited to see who the intruder is, and, rousing
+himself, is retreating. The terrier barks no more, but you can hear the
+thump-thump of the badger, followed by the efforts of the dog to keep up
+with him. They are now a long way in, and you can plainly hear the bark
+again. Soon the fight draws nearer, and the terrier's cry comes to your
+ear with regularity and clearness; but the badger is only disputing the
+way, he has not yet been driven with his back against the wall. The
+terrier redoubles his activity, you can hear him feinting at the badger,
+sharp give-and-take, but no foolish attempt to lay hold. After ten
+minutes the badger again retreats, probably up the hill, and you have to
+listen on the surface or at the higher holes of the set till you can
+hear them again. At last you catch a faint sound, they are still moving,
+now stationary, now further on; then they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> seem to stay in one place.
+There is the steady yap-yap-yap of the dog just distinguishable to the
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>Quick, every hand to work. A trench six feet deep, or deeper if
+necessary, must be cut across the set to cut off the badger from the
+passages. With pick, spade, and shovel the work goes on, while some one
+listens to know whether the scene of battle moves. If it does, the
+badger may have found a side gallery, and gone far enough, or he may
+have charged the dog. He may have passed by a different road beneath
+your feet in the trench; but if the terrier has succeeded in keeping him
+face to face and engaged, yet not driving him so hard as to make him
+charge, you may be successful in an hour or two, and find that your
+cutting intersects the passage in which the badger and the terrier are
+engaged. If the badger suspects you are cutting off his only means of
+escape he will charge and fight, and the terrier will sometimes be
+unable to back fast enough; then there will be a meeting of teeth and
+jaws, the badger holding the dog through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> the head, jaw, or nose. The
+dog's smothered cries of anger and pain make you strain every nerve to
+get to his relief.</p>
+
+<p>When the badger at last leaves go, the terrier's turn comes, and now
+with blood up he drives back the badger to his end of the hole with
+every determination to keep him there. After two or three turns like
+this, if the dog has been in an hour or two, he will probably come out
+for a breath of air for a moment. He should be immediately taken,
+fastened up, watered, and kept in reserve for future contingencies, and
+the best terrier for sticking up be sent in with the utmost haste. If a
+minute has been spent in doing this, every moment will have been used by
+the badger in barricading the passage against the dog and burying
+himself. This once accomplished, you may as well whistle for your badger
+as continue digging, for he may have got down into some other gallery,
+or have buried himself so that neither dog nor man can find him. Of one
+thing you may be sure, that whilst you are speculating what has become
+of him, he is digging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> at a prodigious rate, or has already made his
+escape by some secret stair.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, you are quick, terrier number two has interrupted master
+badger as he is at work and lets you know. "It's all right," "Come on,"
+"He's here," "I've got him," "He's got me," "You beast," "Get back,"
+"I'll hold him," and spade and shovel and pick are hard at work again.
+Backs and arms are aching with lifting at high pressure out of the deep
+trench. You dig on, blocking the hole as the roof falls in, but every
+now and then the shovels clear it for a moment to give the dog air. And
+now the game has shown itself. A terrible charge down the hole sends out
+the terrier; and the badger, seeing the men at work, backs again,
+followed by the dog. Now all is excitement. Every snap, haunch, grunt,
+groan, and yell in the fight is heard. A favourite's life in the
+balance! The prize in view! The other terriers are tugging at their
+chains, frantic to join the fray, yelling fit to split their throats. It
+is maddening for them to see the dust and commotion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> in the trench, to
+hear the sound of battle so near, to wind the enemy, to hear the cry of
+their fighting and perhaps wounded companion, and not to be allowed to
+share in the glory of the final action. Now is the time if you have a
+terrier to enter to see what he is made of, but there is no time to
+waste on education. You are close up to the badger, he cannot be an
+arm's-length off. Draw your dog, the badger will then turn his tail to
+you to dig, or he will charge out. Be ready with the tongs, and a good
+dog in case he charges. But if he turns tail get hold of it with a good
+grip. A long pull and a steady pull will draw him out, bouncing,
+lunging, and snapping. Now, boys, ready with the sack! Dogs off. All
+want steady nerves now; three hands on the sack mouth to keep it open,
+and take care of your fingers! A twirl round and a quick plunge, and the
+badger is in the bag. Don't let go his tail till you have slipped the
+cord on his hind-leg, and made the other end of the cord fast to the bag
+mouth and to a tree. I have seen a badger go through a sack like a
+bullet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> through paper, and it is well to make all as safe as possible.</p>
+
+<p>M. Edmond le Masson, in his book on hunting fox and badger, severely
+deprecates tailing a badger. He denounces the danger and folly of it,
+and gives an amusing account of his falling into a trench at the
+critical moment as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One fine day, or rather one cursed day, when I was sweating blood and
+water to get a monster badger out of his earth, a venerable patriarch,
+white with years, who resisted my aching tired arms and weary back with
+all his strength, the earth gave way and I fell back, rolling over with
+the animal, and there I was at the bottom of the abyss in a veritable
+pandemonium. Bruised and breathless, I was conscious enough to know that
+I was in very bad company, with four more badgers, a furious mother and
+three young ones, and not so young either but that one of them was able
+to tear from me a large piece of the most indispensable part of my
+attire, which placed me in a position of cruel embarrassment, and
+obliged me to wait till the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> shades of night enabled me to get home with
+decency. The most humiliating part of the adventure was that all these
+cursed brutes, father, mother, and children, made the most insolent
+retreat over my stomach to escape from their earth, and then took off
+straight across country and escaped. From this moment I have felt a
+ferocious malice against all badgers, whether big, middling, or little,
+and I never go down into the trench now without having a Lefaucheux
+revolver and a Devisme revolver, a long dagger knife, and a sharp Toledo
+colichemarde!"</p>
+
+<p>But let not ingenuous youth think that to enjoy the sport all he has to
+do is to take a spade and any reputable terrier. He might as well try,
+like Dame Partington, to stop the rising tide with a mop! Before so
+serious an enterprise as a badger digging be undertaken, the wise man
+will see to it that all the materials are ready, and let him be sure
+that he has the first necessity&mdash;the stout heart to go through with a
+tough job when once started. I have, with my brother, Mr. J. A. Pease,
+started at 7.30a.m. from home, worked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> a summer's day with a slight
+refreshment at one, handled pick and shovel and spade, fought the
+terriers, and gone on through the afternoon, evening, and a black wet
+night, without even a drop of water to slake our parched throats,
+deserted by all but one faithful workman, and on till the grey dawn of
+another day, which found us as weary, wet, and wounded, and as
+disreputable a looking company of three men and four terriers as ever
+survived a bloody action. At five o'clock we secured a splendid pair of
+badgers, which we bore home on aching backs, followed by our gallant
+little team of draggled and dirty terriers. On another occasion, it took
+my brother and myself, some ten labourers and keepers, and nine
+terriers, from 10 till 5.30 to take an old 30-lb. dog badger, in an
+earth which had only one hole, and where it was a case of following
+straight into the hill. It is wonderful what can be done by twelve men
+with pick, spade, and shovel in seven hours. On this occasion we dug a
+trench ten feet long into the hill, and then the depth of bearing
+necessitated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> our making a drift, or tunnel, which we drove in thirty
+feet. The heat and want of air inside made the work difficult. Candles
+would not burn after we had gone about twenty feet, and the tunnel was
+so low that we had to work on our knees and then on our stomachs. There
+was a considerable danger from the roof falling in, but the fight waged
+so fiercely that we thought of little but what was ahead of us. When at
+last we got within distance of the badger, he was in rocky ground, we
+could mine no further, and being on a shelf round a corner no terrier
+could draw him. As I was the smallest of the party, it fell to me to try
+and reach him, and I crawled up as far as I could, holding a little
+bull-terrier on whom I could rely for protection for my face, and a pair
+of short badger tongs. I had indeed a bad quarter of an hour!</p>
+
+<p>It was stifling, cramped, and pitch dark. I kept the terrier in front of
+my head and gallantly he behaved, though every now and then the badger's
+charge, or a fierce encounter, nearly smothered me with dust and soil,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+against which I could not protect myself, as I was powerless to retreat,
+there being only room to lie flat on the ground. The man behind me was
+in the same position, tight hold of my ankles, and the man again behind
+him, and the rest of the force made a human chain, which on a signal
+from me was to be drawn out to daylight. Many attempts I made when the
+badger charged to get him with the tongs, but I had so little room to
+work my hands in that I missed him, and heard and felt the click and
+snack of his teeth on the iron. At last I felt I had hold of something,
+and I slipped the guard on the tongs, making the hold sure. I cried
+"Haul away," holding the terrier with one hand between me and the
+badger, and the tongs in the other. I found that he came with wonderful
+ease. It was not till we got to the light that I saw I had the huge
+bouncing brute by one claw, "Nip" diverting his attention from my head
+and hands. The labourers set up a shout, "He's got him by the clee," and
+a minute later we had the satisfaction of bagging him. But we were out
+only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> just in time. I had gone back with the terriers to see if there
+was nothing more in, and hardly had got outside again, when there was a
+fall from the roof that would, if it had taken place earlier, have
+buried some of us alive. As it was I looked round to see if we were all
+there. The men were, but one little terrier, "Pepper," a real treasure
+belonging to a neighbour of mine in Cleveland, Mr. J. P. Petch, was
+missing. We went in and found him buried, but got him out alive and
+little the worse. This was the biggest badger my brother and I ever got.</p>
+
+<p>But these operations are quite surpassed by those M. le Masson related
+in the following authentic story.</p>
+
+<p>"An extraordinary <i>chasse</i> that lasted without interruption three days
+and three nights, took place lately in the neighbourhood of St. Omer, on
+some land in the picturesque commune of Wisques, in a wood attached to
+the château of Madame la douairière Cauvet de Blanchonval.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning two young sportsmen of St. Omer, MM. Théobald Cauvet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+Charles d'Hallewyn, were told by the <i>garde forestier</i> that on his beat
+he knew of several badgers near the place they call l'Ermitage.</p>
+
+<p>"The little dogs being put on the scent soon found the earths, where
+they entered, and advanced with so much courage that they never stopped
+till they had reached the bottom of the earth, where they cornered the
+badgers, which held their ground in an attitude of the most threatening
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>"The assailants, thus powerless, made themselves heard by barking and
+baying incessantly, and with heroic pluck, the little fellows refused to
+retreat in spite of the repeated calls of their masters.</p>
+
+<p>"Their perseverance being carried to this length, our young gentlemen
+formed a resolution worthy of their taste for great undertakings and
+adventures. Labourers were called from the field and commissioned at
+once to set to work to reach the badgers.</p>
+
+<p>"The attempt was more than bold. The mouths of the set, three in number,
+were at the foot of a hill, and embraced between them a sort of
+triangular piece of land at the apex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> of which the passages all united
+and formed a single underground gallery. The dogs having each entered by
+a separate hole made this clear.</p>
+
+<p>"A shaft was sunk in order to start a tunnel at the opening of the
+lowest hole, but a depth of 7 to 8 metres (23 to 26 feet) had to be sunk
+before the passage was reached; thence they followed the direction taken
+by the dogs, and enlarged the tunnel to reach them, making an
+underground roadway 5 feet high (1-1/2 metres) and nearly 6 feet wide
+(1-3/4 metres).</p>
+
+<p>"Whilst the workmen were mining, the badgers on their part were also
+working ceaselessly, and kept blocking the road with the earth they
+threw back in front of the men who were pursuing them, whilst the latter
+worked in shifts (relieving parties). For three days and three nights
+these indomitable animals worked on, retreating all the time, during
+which they bored their way 49 feet whilst buried in this extension of
+their principal earth without air or food.</p>
+
+<p>"At one time during this war <i>à outrance</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> it was thought they had
+escaped by some means or other, but the game terriers, which had hardly
+left them since the beginning of the struggle, soon reassured the
+workers by their redoubled cries. The undertaking was pushed on with
+greater determination than ever, and when the tunnel had reached a
+length of more than 30 metres (100 feet) they came on three badgers,
+which were quickly popped into a sack by the keeper. One of them,
+however, in his struggles succeeded in escaping from the sack, and even
+tore the clothes of the man who was carrying him. MM. Cauvet and
+d'Hallewyn showed a persistent perseverance during the whole of this
+struggle. By day and by night each in turn directed the operations of a
+siege at which more than one other lover of the pleasures of the chase
+assisted."</p>
+
+<p>I have given one or two out of many examples I could relate of the
+arduous nature of badger-hunting. Discipline among the workmen is as
+necessary as determination in every attempt to dig out badgers. Nothing
+imperils success so much as divided or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> disputed authority, and whilst
+every attention should be given to the opinions expressed in the
+councils of war during the progress of the siege, there must be no
+hesitation in carrying out the plan of campaign when once decided on, or
+the day may be wasted in earthworks, in making trenches, and attempts to
+cut off subterranean ways which have been begun only to be abandoned.
+The terriers are the most important requisite; they must be good, the
+right size, hardy, enduring, and reliable. No matter how game a dog is,
+if he cannot follow the badger he is useless. He must above all be
+full-mouthed, sharp-tongued, and ready to keep his voice going for hours
+together. He must be absolutely true, or he may make a fool of you, and
+lie fast in the earth baying an imaginary foe, or barking and scratching
+to get up a small rabbit-hole. Beware of a terrier that will think of
+such vermin when employed to fly at much higher game. They are worse
+indeed than useless, and often have I been driven nearly wild by being
+persuaded to allow some man proud of his terrier to let him go.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+Nothing can be more exasperating than when, after several hours of heavy
+labour and straining effort, whilst the proud owner stands smiling by
+and boasting the merits of his nailing dog, you at length reach the
+scene of all the disturbance to see a dirty little brute scratching his
+feet to tatters, frothing at the mouth, and wow-wowing to get up a
+three-inch rabbit-hole.</p>
+
+<p>An authority in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> recommends collars of bells
+being attached to the terriers to make the badger bolt, and states that
+broad collars of badger-skin save their necks. The former I do not
+believe to be efficacious, as fire, smoke, and crackers will not make a
+badger bolt while any one is about, and if it were efficacious it would
+be very easy to lose a bolting badger. A collar on a terrier is more
+likely to hang a dog on a root end than to save him from a bite. A
+terrier ninety-nine times out of a hundred is bitten through the muzzle,
+under the jaws, and about the skull and ears, and when inexperienced,
+about the fore-legs and shoulders. I never saw a terrier badly bitten in
+the neck,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> though I have seen a terrier's side torn, and one that turned
+tail punished severely in the rear. Whilst the terrier for badger should
+be game to the death, it is all-important that he should mingle
+discretion with his valour, and not drive his superior foe to
+desperation, but content himself with keeping him at bay, only using his
+teeth at a pinch and in extreme cases. Tell me, reader, how many
+terriers you know who can or will go to ground, stay there, tell the
+truth always, pass through every place a badger can, keep his head under
+the most exasperating circumstances, and come up smiling and eager after
+every round, no matter how much punished?</p>
+
+<p>What thousands of little curs there are called terriers, and
+fox-terriers that will no more go down a fox-earth than go up a chimney!
+How many thousands of the best of these, however finely shaped for the
+show-bench, that have no more idea of their profession and the duties
+for which nature made them, and from which they derive their name, than
+the man in the moon, and whose masters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> are satisfied if they can kill a
+few rats, and think them wonderfully game if they will tackle a cat!</p>
+
+<p>From my boyhood I have had terriers, but I never thought one worth
+keeping that could not, or would not, go to ground and show himself or
+herself worthy of their honourable name. Appearance is nothing if the
+other qualities are not present. I have had a little wire-haired terrier
+bitch (with neat, golden-tanned marked head), pretty and gentle, and
+winning in all her ways, a companion that slept on my bed each night,
+and looked the picture of innocence lying by the hearth or even on a
+lady's lap; but within that bosom beat a courageous little heart, in her
+head throbbed a brain full of sagacious intelligence, and in that soft
+brown eye lurked hidden fire. She could give deep music long sustained,
+and she never winced before the enemy. I called her "Worry," a name that
+seemed most <i>mal à propos</i> to her casual acquaintance. For twelve long
+years she was at my side in all the ups and downs of life, leading the
+drag when I was at Cambridge, following foxhounds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> and bolting foxes
+when I was hunting, and my constant and daily companion, accompanying me
+into every county when I made an expedition against the badger. I was
+once amused by the remarks made about Worry by an old shoemaker who
+sometimes accompanied us with a good terrier when we were ratting. "Si'
+the (see thee), lads, Worry's t' yan (the one) fer (for) pickin' t' wick
+(the life) out on 'em," as she threw five or six big rats over her
+shoulder in half as many seconds. She died a terrible death, but game
+and uncomplaining to the last. She had a knack of squeezing herself
+through almost any kennel bars, and I had had to put her into a kennel
+for a time, and had the bars made narrower and covered with mesh wire
+netting. An hour after I had put her in I went to see her, and I was
+horror-struck to find that she was half through the bars nipped as in a
+vice, the wire torn with her teeth, and herself covered with blood and
+wounds, with one eye hanging out, blood flowing from her mouth, still
+fighting her way on&mdash;without a sound except her panting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> breath. She was
+delighted to see me, and with some trouble I liberated her, cut off her
+eye, staunched her wounds, and did all I could for her. She never even
+winced as I cut away the eye, and as she lay in her bed looked at me
+affectionately with her one eye and wagged her tail. The following day,
+though she did not even whine, I saw she was in terrible pain; and as
+she was at this time badly ruptured, and very lame owing to a carriage
+accident some years before which resulted in a broken thigh and a double
+fracture above the hock, I had her shot, and buried in a quiet corner of
+the orchard, with the inscription on her headstone "<i>Sit tibi terra
+levis</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The terriers I have found the best and surest are amongst the Yorkshire
+breed of hard, wire-haired fox-terriers, short in the leg and strong
+headed. All my own have been descended from a white, wire-haired terrier
+called Fuss, the best bitch I ever had, and a prize-winner. I bought her
+in 1870 or 1871 from a dealer called Wooton. She was bred by a man
+called Jack Ridd. Worry was out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> her. My brother got a dog, Roger, a
+dead game one, at the same time from the same man, and nearly all the
+terriers I have had since are descended from these two, with out-crosses
+from local strains, including the Rev. Jack Russell's blood. I have seen
+smooth-coated terriers do equally well, but not often. The former is a
+harder and more enduring breed, though more difficult to keep clean in
+the coat, and taking time to get dry after wet in cold weather. The
+endurance of the wire-haired is remarkable. I have now a terrier, bred
+through many lines of my old favourites, which is twelve years old. His
+jolly face is scored with the marks of a thousand fights with fox and
+badger, and though lame in his shoulders, his eyes dim with age, and
+crippled with rheumatism, showing toothless gums when he smiles his
+welcome, he has twice this summer found alone the badger earths, and
+returned at evening, each time with his score of marks increased, and on
+the last occasion he left one of his ears behind him!<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> A terrier that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+will go off to a badger earth on his own account, especially if a young
+one, will probably end his days and find his grave there. I have known
+several do so. Poor old Twig! Always happy, he seldom now wanders
+further than the stable-yard, and spends his declining days playing with
+the foxhound pup or sleeping in the sun, when in his dreams he fights
+his battles over again, and thrice he slays the slain. When we were
+young together he followed me every hunting morning to the meet, where
+he at once incorporated himself with the pack, greeting his friends in
+turn with a grin, a twist of his body, and a wag of his stump; and when
+the daylight faded, and the horn sounded for home, I had always to carry
+him off on my saddle, so reluctant was he, after the longest day, to
+leave his comrades of the chase. This became so troublesome that at last
+I yielded to the pressure of the huntsman, Will Nicholl, who then hunted
+the Cleveland hounds, to permit him to join the kennel establishment.
+For three seasons he scarcely missed a day, and when a fox was run to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+ground, no matter after how long or fast a run, the question, "Where is
+Twig?" was never asked twice. Always there when wanted, always
+dependable and perfect at his work, he shifted many a sulky fox that
+went to ground. Then Will Nicholl went to the Hurworth under Sir
+Reginald Graham, and took Twig with him. He did two seasons in the
+Hurworth country, from thence going to the Burton with Nicholl again.
+After a season there I had a letter saying that Nicholl feared that the
+old dog would not follow hounds another season, and he sent him back
+with me. I summered him well; he did the next season with the Cleveland,
+and came out the following season when hounds were handy or when
+occasion required, making eight seasons with foxhounds, besides being
+hunted at badger in the summer months. He had learnt not to be hard on a
+fox, but I thought I detected him in an act of violence something more
+than a year ago. We had run to ground in a drain, and Twig, who had
+heard hounds, had come across country as fast as his old legs would
+carry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> him, and was in before I could say "Knife." No sooner was he in
+than the fox was out, with Twig at his brush. This was not at all what
+we wanted, as the whole pack was within fifteen yards. Twig collared the
+fox as he bolted, and as the hounds were making a dash at him. I was
+angry with Twig, lifted the fox and Twig, who I thought was holding the
+fox, above my head to save reynard from the hounds. Here I had to hold
+him for five minutes, but when I tried to choke the old dog off, I
+discovered that the fox was holding Twig through the upper jaw, and the
+dog was hanging with his whole weight suspended on the fox's teeth.
+Having made the fox leave go Twig fell to the ground, and when all was
+clear I put the fox down, when we had a sharp ten minutes to ground
+again. I was there only just in time to prevent Twig from going in to
+take his revenge&mdash;the fox this time being left in peace. It is as well
+to have with you one bull-terrier, or a fox-terrier with a bit of bull
+about him. In cases of emergency, and when close up, such a dog comes in
+useful, but they are tiresome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> brutes as a rule to do with; they get so
+excited that they do not care what they go at, it may be the dogs or
+yourself, or I have seen them set to worry a big stone. They often go to
+ground well, but have several faults. They <i>will</i> tackle the badger, get
+punished severely, and create all sorts of difficulties, and are
+generally nearly mute except when fighting.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Dead since this was written.
+</div>
+
+<p>I had a rare life of it on one expedition with a little bull-terrier
+called Nip that I bought from a Cornishman, after a long dig in which
+Nip had distinguished himself. He was a dirty white, ugly, undershot,
+crop-eared little brute, with a tail like a shaving-brush. Shy and
+nervous, he had a fiendish amount of pugnacity and pluck. When not
+otherwise employed, he wore his teeth to the gums in vain endeavours to
+get into the interior of large stones. In a railway-carriage, so
+delighted was he at all times to get to ground, that he would get under
+the seat, and refuse to be removed if he had not on a collar and chain,
+except with the badger-tongs. He had to be muzzled and chained when with
+other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> dogs, and even then would make an utter fool of himself in his
+attempts to fight on every occasion. He would, when he had lost a
+badger, sulk and refuse to come out, and as it was impossible to put in
+any other dog while he was there, he had to be dug to and drawn like a
+brock. Whilst at the end of a day, when every other animal had had more
+than enough, and was glad to get food and rest, he was ready to hold me
+by the leg, and it would take the tongs and a couple of men to get his
+collar on.</p>
+
+<p>I have always had a great admiration for the short-coated, hard, Scotch
+terrier, and believe that they are admirably adapted for this chase, but
+I have had no experience of them. They seem cut out for it, being hardy,
+the right size, sharp-tongued, and amongst the most intelligent of the
+canine race. I knew of one who went to Craig Cluny in the edge of the
+Ballochbuie forest, and spent some hours in a vain attempt to dislodge a
+badger. He returned three miles to the inn at Braemar and found another
+terrier like himself; they trotted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> back together, and by their united
+efforts drew and killed an old badger! There is a spot near this place
+in the forest called Stra-na-brach&mdash;or the badger's crag&mdash;but the badger
+knows the place no more. The keeper has done his work with the trap
+throughout Aberdeenshire.</p>
+
+<p>Dandie Dinmont no doubt bred his dogs from these terriers, but I have no
+belief that the present race is fitted for badger-hunting. Those one
+sees on a show bench are too large to get to ground quickly and easily,
+and I doubt if there is one of the race, as at present known, that has
+ever exchanged civilities with the badger in his natural earth. Dandie
+Dinmont bred his terriers for badgers, but I am sure his never were the
+size they are now; and although Sir Walter Scott has surrounded Dandie
+with a halo of interest, and made him immortal by his eulogies, his
+fiendish cruelties have always made me hate his name, and prejudiced me
+against a breed that was developed under a hideous system. It makes my
+blood boil to read of his terriers trained to face the badger by taking
+alive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> young and old badgers, and sawing off the under jaws, and
+employing other indescribably cruel methods.</p>
+
+<p>The dachshund and the small basset, when properly selected, are
+splendidly adapted for badger-hunting. In Germany the former, and in
+France the latter, are generally bred for this purpose. Full-voiced and
+throwing a tongue like a hound, deep-chested, short-legged, and
+strong-bodied, they are perhaps the best one can have, but I do not
+think that they possess the endurance and quickness of an English
+terrier.</p>
+
+<p>There was a breed of wire-haired black-and-tan English terriers, but I
+imagine them to be nearly, if not altogether, extinct, that from all
+accounts must have been really good terriers in the true meaning of the
+term.</p>
+
+<p>In working dogs, be careful only to put in one at a time: you thus
+economize your forces, and avoid the risk of their fighting in the
+earth. More than this, if you let two dogs or a dog and a bitch in
+together, you subject them to danger and the probability of severe
+punishment. The dog in front is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> charged by the badger, the dog behind
+cares for nothing but that he may get to close quarters, and it is a
+case of those behind cry forward and those in front cry back. In such a
+position your terrier may have his legs and head broken, and be killed
+outright. Again, a good terrier works better and more steadily than with
+a companion, as the competition leads to jealousy. Put in your dog at
+the lowest or bottom hole of the set, driving the badger up-hill (or "to
+hill," as it is technically called) if you can. It is a much easier task
+to get a badger out in this manner, as the further up-hill the fewer are
+the passages, and generally speaking the nearer they lie to the surface.
+Furthermore, take care that you have a collar and chain for each dog,
+and that every terrier not on duty is securely fastened at a distance
+from the earth, and out of reach of any other dog.</p>
+
+<p>The following are the requisite implements for badger digging; they
+should be good and handy tools:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. and 2. Spades. These should be handy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> and worn to that condition
+when the edge is sharp, and the tool works easily, without having lost
+its strength. They should vary but little from the ordinary garden or
+rabbiting spade, except that where there is a depth of clay, and when in
+a deep trench, it may be easier or a relief to use a drainer's long
+narrow one.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 263px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig07.jpg" width="263" height="500" alt="Fig. 7." title="" />
+<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 7.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>3. A crowbar.</p>
+
+<p>4. A scraper, or coal-rake.</p>
+
+<p>5 and 6. Shovels, for clearing out the loose earth, including a
+short-handled one, or scoop, for opening the holes to let in air to the
+dogs.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig08.jpg" width="400" height="362" alt="Fig. 8." title="" />
+<span class="caption smcap">Fig. 8.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>7. An earth-piercer, in order to locate the fight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/ill-fig09.jpg" width="600" height="335" alt="Fig. 9." title="" />
+<span class="caption smcap">Fig. 9.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>8. Tongs. The handles should be of wood, as steel and iron "give" under
+the pressure of a man's strength at one end and the badger at the other.
+With wooden handles and steel fittings there will still be spring enough
+to work the guard, which is put on to secure the hold on the animal.</p>
+
+<p>9. Adze, or hatchet, for cutting roots of trees.</p>
+
+<p>10 and 11. Picks, single or double.</p>
+
+<p>Do not forget when starting on a badger-hunt to take plenty of
+refreshment with you, and remember that it is a dry job digging
+ceaselessly on a summer's day. Draught cider, light beer, and cold tea
+are the best liquors to work on for a long stretch. Do not leave the
+sacks behind you, nor cord to secure them with. And finally, reader, if
+you are a true sportsman, whilst sparing neither necessary pain to
+yourself nor dog during the progress of the siege, do not subject your
+terriers to unnecessary exposure and punishment; and when the day's work
+is done, however weary and however hungry you may be, do not attend to
+your own wants till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> you have seen each member of your gallant little
+pack well brushed and oiled (eyes and ears and wounds, if any, cleaned),
+fed, and put into a kennel with plenty of clean bedding. And do not
+forget to make a brave foe as comfortable as you can. If you keep a
+badger in confinement as a pet, he should have access to plenty of fresh
+cold water, and be fed on young rabbits and bread till accustomed to
+confinement, after which he will take gradually to and remain healthy on
+almost any scraps, meat, and vegetables from the house that you give
+him. He requires a dry dark kennel and yard, which should be kept
+scrupulously clean, when he will never be offensive. Some badgers take
+kindly at once to these new circumstances, others sulk and occasionally
+waste and die unless great care is taken. If the badger's evacuations
+show a tendency to purging, feed on bread chiefly and rabbit, or if
+fastidious in his appetite, give raw eggs and bread.</p>
+
+<p>If by this little book I have done anything towards interesting those
+who care about the perpetuation of a wild and interesting animal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> that
+is fast disappearing from our hillsides and valleys, and shown that
+healthy exercise and pleasure can be obtained in protecting him from
+extinction and by fairly entering the lists against him, I shall have
+done something towards delaying that sad day when the last badgers, with
+the lessons of courage and endurance that they can teach, have vanished
+for ever.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Richard Clay &amp; Sons, Limited, London &amp; Bungay.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div id="box5">
+<p class="noi">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+
+<p class="noi">Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in the original
+publication, including on Page 61 where "vne" and "vn" have been
+retained as published&mdash;"C'est vne chose" and "car si on passe vn".
+The following change was made:</p>
+
+<p class="noi">Page 48<br />
+entred a good depth <i>changed to</i><br />
+<a href="#entered">entered</a> a good depth</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
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@@ -0,0 +1,2386 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Badger
+       A Monograph
+
+Author: Alfred E. Pease
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36830]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BADGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, David Garcia and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BADGER
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BADGER. [_Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+    THE BADGER
+
+    _A MONOGRAPH_
+
+    BY
+    ALFRED E. PEASE, M.P.
+
+    AUTHOR OF
+    "THE CLEVELAND HOUNDS AS A TRENCHER-FED PACK,"
+    "HORSE BREEDING FOR FARMERS," ETC.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    LONDON
+    LAWRENCE AND BULLEN, LTD.
+    16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+    1898
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+    LONDON & BUNGAY.
+
+
+
+
+    "Hunting it is the noblest exercise,
+    Makes men laborious, active, wise;
+    Brings health and doth the spirits delight;
+    It helps the hearing and the sight:
+    It teacheth arts that never slip
+    The memory--good horsemanship,
+    Search, sharpness, courage, and defence,
+    And chaseth all ill-habits thence."--BEN JONSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE BADGER
+
+PART I
+
+
+I do not know of the existence of any monograph on the Badger, ancient
+or modern, in English or any other language. Nor have I been able to
+find any adequate description in any work on natural history or British
+fauna of this the largest, and by no means the least interesting, of the
+real wild animals that still exist in England and Wales. So that,
+however unfitted I may be to write a scientific treatise on the last of
+the bear tribe that we have yet with us, I have ventured to think that
+my own observations and researches, with experiences of the chase of
+this troglodyte, may be of interest to lovers of the animal world, and
+to not a few sportsmen.
+
+From my boyhood all wild animals have had for me an intense fascination,
+and though in later years my hunting-grounds have been for the most part
+in other countries and continents, and among larger game, I doubt if any
+of the beasts whose acquaintance I have thus made has been a source of
+greater interest to me than the badger. The charm of an animal for man,
+where the sporting is the master instinct, appears to be measured by his
+capacity to elude observation and defy pursuit; and the badger, judged
+by this test, is a charming creature. I may be mistaken, but to me it
+appears that the chase in its widest sense is one of the best schools
+for studying nature. Such knowledge as I have gained of the badger has
+been due to the indulgence of this "brutal" instinct, as it is profanely
+called, and from quiet observation. If the reader will spare a little
+time, I will show him the manner in which my observations are made, but
+I warn him that there is nothing scientific about them. I have no
+microscope and no dissecting-room.
+
+It is June. A hot summer's day is dying, and the sun is sinking through
+soft clouds of glory behind the pine woods on the hill. A thousand birds
+in vale and woodland are singing with an ecstasy and sweetness that seem
+tenderly conscious that the hours of song are numbered--that the days
+are coming when darkness or dawn will steal over the land in silence,
+unheralded as it is to-day by their wild sweet notes. We wander across
+the pasture by the cattle, and along the side of the ripening meadow
+towards the wooded bank under the edge of the moor, where the badger has
+his home. As we near the covert, a few rabbits that have ventured far
+out into the field frisk up the hill, alarming their less adventurous
+companions, and all make for the shelter of the wood, displaying a
+hundred little cotton tails.
+
+As the gate into the plantation opens a few wood-pigeons stop their
+cooing and fly swiftly up and out of the trees with a clean cutting
+slap-slap of their wings to some other solitude safer from intrusion.
+Once in the shadow of the firs, softly treading we come up-wind to the
+badger "set." Here we choose a place among the larch stems which gives
+us a good view of the most-used entrances to the earth, some fifteen
+yards from the nearest hole. We turn up our coat-collars, draw our caps
+over our faces, and settle ourselves in such positions as will least try
+our patience and muscles during the hour in which we must remain
+immovable. In idea nothing could be more delightful than to sit in the
+deepening twilight of a summer's evening, with a soft breath of air
+stirring the feathery larch tops against the sky above, the ground
+carpeted with the vivid green of the opening bracken, surrounded by the
+music of cooing wood-pigeons, the full notes of blackbird and thrush,
+and listening to the pleasant sounds carried on the breeze from the
+distant farms.
+
+Delightful as is the enjoyment of the confidences of Nature in her most
+hidden solitudes, the pleasure has its price, and the angler on a
+summer's eve can sympathize with the man who sits over a badger earth.
+But he at least can protect himself to some extent against the
+exasperating attacks of midges in myriads, and vent his feelings aloud,
+and flog the waters, whilst the latter must stoically endure the torture
+and the plague. The most he can do is occasionally to draw his hand from
+his pocket, and slowly move it to his face and massacre the settlers on
+his nose, his ears, his neck, and carefully move it again into its
+hiding-place. In spite of the torment, however, he may enjoy the sights
+and sounds, known to but few, that these witching hours alone can give.
+The rabbits emerge within a yard of him, first the little ones,
+unconscious of his eye, then the old ones sit up and, imitating his
+immovability, watch him critically with their black beady eyes set, and
+noses palpitating; after a while old paterfamilias gives his signal of
+alarm or warning by a sharp pat, pat with his hind foot, telling all
+round that there is something in his vicinity he does not know how to
+account for. The cry of the startled blackbird warns that some other
+enemy is on foot as he flies from the bur-tree to the thorn, and we see
+an old fox moving through the young bracken with lowered head and brush,
+starting off on his nightly raid. A belated squirrel throws himself from
+the tree above, runs close by us on the ground, up the stem of a larch,
+and is soon lost in the sea of green above. A numerous and dissipated
+family of little crested wrens, which should have settled for the night
+ere this, twitter with diminutive voices as they twist in and out and
+hang on the boughs of the spruce in front of us.
+
+Gradually, as the daylight fades, one after another of the singers
+becomes silent, the sounds of day are hushed, and a perfect silence
+reigns in the twilight amidst the trees. Without any warning we are
+conscious of the clean black-and-white face of an old badger over the
+earthwork outside his hole, and presently he is all in view, sitting
+with bowed fore-legs and his head turning on his lithe outstretched
+neck, scenting the night air. There is nothing to excite his suspicion,
+so he shambles to the nearest tree, puts up his fore-feet and rubs his
+neck, smells round the well-known trunk, and having satisfied himself
+that all is as usual, sits for awhile admiring the limited landscape
+before him. He then shuffles a few yards from the earth, scratches the
+soil here and there as if to keep his digging tools in order, and
+returns to the bottom of the tree. Another pied face appears, and more
+quickly than the first she trundles off to join her mate, and they
+bounce along one after another over the earths, round the trees, down
+one hole and out at another, and then rest awhile outside the earth they
+first emerged from. Three more come forth, and go through very much the
+same programme as the first, snorting and bumping along one after the
+other and one against the other.
+
+Presently one takes off into the thickest covert. You can hear him
+bumping along, sweeping through the bracken and crackling the dead wood.
+Presently the others come past you, tumbling along so close that you
+could hit them with your stick. Probably they take no notice, but if you
+wink, wince, or move they will shamble back to the earth and watch you
+for ten minutes. It is then a trial for your nerves. If you move you
+have seen the last of them for the night, but if you succeed in being
+perfectly still they will recover sufficient confidence to sally forth
+again, but will take off quickly in different directions for their
+night's ramble. Then at last we may raise our stiff limbs and turn our
+steps through the dark woods, leaving the fox and badger to their
+devices, and once more frightening the rabbits which flash past us as we
+wade homewards through the grass heavy and wet with dew. We have made no
+startling discovery on this our first night together by the badger
+"set," but probably we have made a better acquaintance with badgers in
+this hour than we could have gained in any museum of natural history,
+with the assistance of the most erudite Fellow of the Zoological
+Society.
+
+To understand and appreciate all sides of the badger's character you
+must see him in war as well as at peace; and such knowledge has to be
+purchased by great labour and bodily fatigue. In the name of sport, as
+in the name of liberty, great crimes are often committed. There are
+those who look upon hunting of all sorts as cruel and degrading, and
+cannot understand the pleasures of a chase involving the distress of
+pursuit or pain to any animal. I have a certain sympathy for such
+sentiments, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, my very love of
+animals increases my passion for hunting them. Besides the longing to
+come to close quarters with them, the desire to possess or to handle
+them, there is the natural ambition to be even with them. There is an
+unwritten code of honour in the field which, if followed, makes the
+struggle of wits and strength, of skill and endurance, a fair one, and
+one in which alone many a valuable lesson out of Nature's book can be
+taught. To relieve any tender consciences amongst my readers I may here
+declare, without wishing to reflect on brother sportsmen whose methods
+are more Cromwellian, that when victorious in the war with a badger,
+when, after many a hard-fought battle in his subterranean
+fortress--when mine and counter-mine, tunnel, shaft, and trench have
+driven him fighting to his last stand in his deepest and innermost
+citadel, and he has been forced to capitulate--I have never abandoned
+him to a victorious soldiery howling for blood, but have always given
+him honourable terms. I have never willingly or wantonly killed a
+badger; he has invariably become a pampered prisoner, or been
+transported to some new home, where some one whom I had interested in
+his species was prepared to give him protection, and a new start in
+life. Among those who have given my badgers protection I may name Mr.
+Edward North Buxton, who has done so much to maintain the natural beauty
+of Epping Forest, and to protect wild life within its borders. I know of
+several thriving colonies of badgers within the forest precincts
+descended from my prisoners of war.
+
+I have kept many badgers in confinement, but never to "try" my dogs, and
+all my terriers learnt their trade in legitimate fashion. Badger-baiting
+I unreservedly condemn--it is as much a profanation of sport as
+coursing bagged hares in enclosed grounds. There are degrees of
+wickedness, and when a badger is placed in a properly-constructed
+badger-box there are few terriers that would not be vanquished in the
+encounter. The figure below illustrates the correct box.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+One of the atrocious methods by which the badger was baited in the last
+century is described and denounced in volume xii. of the _Sporting
+Magazine_, 1788. "They dig a place in the earth about a yard long, so
+that one end is four feet deep. At this end a strong stake is driven
+down. Then the badger's tail is split, a chain put through it, and
+fastened to the stake with such ability that the badger can come up to
+the other end of the place. The dogs are brought and set upon the poor
+animal, who sometimes destroys several dogs before it is killed."
+
+Badger-baiting, it seems, was the price the race had to pay for its
+existence, and with the happy disuse of a brutal sport the harmless
+badger has been doomed to extinction. The only method by which any
+British wild animal can be preserved from extinction in this age of what
+is termed progress, is to hunt it. Who can doubt, that if fox-hunting
+and otter-hunting were stopped to-day, both these creatures would be
+extinct within the next few years? It may be a hard bargain to make with
+them, but considering their own crimes of violence, and their
+incompatibility with "civilization," it does not seem to be a too severe
+condition to impose on the fox and the otter, that if they are permitted
+to live they must at least submit to the risks and fortunes of the
+chase. Not being able to do more than speculate on the intellectual and
+nervous capacity of animals, we are apt to assign to them some measure
+of human powers of thought and feeling. Undoubtedly they are physically
+less sensitive, and we probably err when we ascribe to them more than a
+slight ability to anticipate, or credit them with such sentiments as
+anxiety, mental distress, and those thoughts and sensations that in the
+main make pain intolerable. Those species that have long been associated
+with man have, I think, a greater capacity for suffering. The
+individuality of each domestic race has been developed; the difference
+of temperament and character of each individual becomes more marked, and
+more or less humanized, according to the influences by which it is
+surrounded. There is a more uniform character and greater similarity of
+temperament among wild animals, and the more refined the civilization
+and the more cultivated the senses, the more sensitive will the whole
+animal become. This may be seen in the most common of Nature's
+operations. The wild beast produces its young with ease and without
+pain. With woman, raised amidst the refinements of civilization, the
+same operation is with every precaution and assistance sometimes a
+dangerous, always an agonizing ordeal.
+
+No, the terms are not hard. Take the case of a fox, the most hunted of
+animals. The ordinary lot of a fox compared with that of any other
+creature, wild or domestic, or even with man himself, is not an
+unenviable one. Unlike the domestic animals, he is not born into
+servitude or to die in early life by the butcher's knife or axe. Happier
+than man, he lives his life, whether longer or shorter, free from the
+worries, cares, and the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. The fox's
+life is free as air. Protected for the most part from the natural
+consequences of his marauding disposition, fair play is given to him to
+avoid the punishment he deserves by the exercise of that strategy,
+activity, and endurance with which he is so abundantly endowed. Two or
+three days in the three hundred and sixty-five he may have to exert
+himself more or less to save his brush, or the end may come swiftly and
+suddenly after a long run; but even so, are there not many of us who
+would be glad to know that our death would come as swiftly and
+painlessly to us as to the fox, who, flying for forty minutes before the
+pack, confident, perhaps, to the last that he is a match for his
+pursuers, is rolled over in his stride? The sportsman may pity the
+sinking fox, with every desire to see the victory of the straining pack,
+in the moment when, after gallantly standing up before hounds, a
+straight-necked veteran finds he has shot his last bolt, and turns with
+fire yet in his eye to meet death in its swiftest form.
+
+There is something strange in the mixture of pain with pleasure. My
+little son comes out cub-hunting with me in the early morning of a
+September day. He is the picture of delight, sitting on his pony among
+the hounds, the effigy of enjoyment as he follows them with his and his
+pony's head just above the high bracken, the incarnation of satisfaction
+as he receives his first brush and is blooded. He is none the less a
+little sportsman for sobbing himself to sleep at night with his brush
+hugged under the bedclothes, because of the thought that the bright
+little cubs he saw killed will never again run in and out of the wood
+on the hillside as of yore. I look into his room the following day, and
+find him in his night-shirt busy extracting the tail-bone from his
+trophy, and he stops in his work only to ask when the hounds will be out
+again.
+
+The power of enjoying hunting of any sort is no evidence of want of
+tenderer feelings. It may be that the days of sport are numbered by the
+exigencies of what is termed the progress of civilization; but whether
+men's hearts will be braver, their bodies and minds healthier, or their
+natures kindlier and happier for the change, only time may show. All
+this is something in the nature of apology; but, excuse or none,
+thousands are conscious that the nearest approach to pure unmixed
+pleasure that they have known has been derived from the chase, where
+cares are forgotten, pulses quickened, eyes brightened, and the mind
+refreshed. About conscious or unconscious vicarious sacrifice with
+regard to the badger I will not say more than this, that the baiting of
+an animal in confinement, even though he be but the scapegoat for a
+thousand of his kind, is so repugnant to humanity, and so likely to
+breed cruelty, that though I lament his imminent extinction I would say,
+"perish _Meles taxus_" rather than let him pay this price for the
+continuance of his race, and, whatever view he might have himself, I
+would refuse him the option.
+
+The badger has made a wonderful struggle for existence, and may linger
+on for many years yet in the more secluded corners of England and Wales
+(in Scotland he is almost extinct), but he owes all to his own
+mysterious silent ways, and nothing to man's mercy in the matter. The
+intelligent and unprejudiced wearers of velveteen, who, with the tacit
+consent of their masters, have by means of the steel trap, flag-trap,
+and gun, exterminated and banished for ever the most interesting of our
+animals and the most beautiful of our birds, have hitherto failed in
+their ruthless attempt to rid earth and heaven of everything but furred
+and feathered game, so far as the badger is concerned. In many English
+counties, however, the badger has given in before ceaseless digging,
+snaring, and shooting, and the silent covert where he had his earth,
+where he dug and delved and made his wonderful subterranean stronghold,
+knows him no more. He has gone with the polecat, the pine marten, the
+wild cat, the harriers, the buzzards, and a host of the brightest and
+loveliest of our birds. Guiltless of the crimes of his fellow-victims
+against game, he was and is still ignorantly classed under that
+all-embracing word of the keeper, "vermin." There are few who lament his
+disappearance save perhaps the makers of shaving-brushes, and the old
+people whose faith in the efficacy of "badger-grease" can no longer find
+the opportunity of exercising the same. This faith is an old one. I read
+in the _Sporting Magazine_, 1800, volume xvii.--"The flesh, blood, and
+grease of the badger are very useful for oils, ointments, salves, and
+powders, for shortness of breath, the cough of the lungs, for the stone,
+sprained sinews, coll-achs, etc. The skin, being well dressed, is very
+warm and comfortable for ancient people who are troubled with paralytic
+disorders." Evidently a few badgers in the good old days supplied the
+place of the country doctor. About the fancied or really mischievous
+habits of the badger I shall have something to say later on.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+The badger (_Meles taxus_, or _Ursus meles_) is known under various
+aliases, viz. the Brock (Danish _Broc_, Erse _Broc_, Welsh _Brock_), the
+Pate, and the Grey. Of these the Brock is perhaps the commonest, and is
+the name most used in the north of England. There is an expression
+common in the north that would lead the ignorant to believe that a
+badger perspires, or sweats, viz. "sweating like a brock." In Yorkshire
+I often hear a man say, "Ah sweats like a brock," and the user of this
+elegant metaphor innocently imagines he is perspiring like a badger. But
+"brock" is the old north-country word for the insect known as
+"cuckoo-spit" (_Aphrophora spumaria_), which covers itself in the larval
+state with froth and foam (cf. Welsh _broch_, foam)--_vide_ Atkinson's
+_Dictionary of the Cleveland Dialect_. In parts of Cornwall and Wales
+the word "Grey" may be in use, but I myself have only come across it in
+books, more especially old ones. Though able to boast these several
+titles, there is but one species known in Europe, and in general
+appearance he is the same animal, though varying locally in size and
+shade of colour. He has been classed as belonging to the bear tribe, but
+the badger is really a single species and a sub-genus in itself. The
+dentition of a badger is half tuberculous and half carnivorous, and in
+this respect approaches the martens.
+
+About few animals has there been more nonsense written in regard to
+habits and anatomy, and for many of the popular notions concerning the
+badger there is no foundation whatever. In the ancient books descriptive
+of sport and wild animals we read that there were in England two kinds
+of badger--the one as we know it, and the other a "pig-badger," with
+cloven hoofs and other attributes of the porker. It is astonishing how
+these old authors drew upon their imagination, and where they found
+suggestions for their errors. In this case it may be they were misled by
+the custom, which still continues, of distinguishing between the dog and
+bitch, or male and female badger, by using the terms boar and sow; or it
+may be the idea dawned whilst they ate their rasher from a badger ham!
+
+There are altogether not more than five (or perhaps six) kinds of badger
+known throughout the world, so far as I know.[1]
+
+    [1] Lydekker, whose authority I accept, enumerates four kinds of
+        badger--
+
+        1. The American (_Taxidea americana_).
+        2. The Common (_Meles taxus_).
+        3. Malayan (_Mydaus meliceps_).
+        4. The Sand-badger (_Arctonyx collaris_).]
+
+1. The European badger, known over almost the whole of Europe and Asia.
+2. A larger species, confined to the high steppes of Eastern Siberia. 3.
+The North American mistonusk, or chocaratouch (_Meles labradorica_ or
+_hudsonius_). 4. The Mexican badger, found south of latitude 35 degrees.
+5. The Japanese badger. 6. The Indian badger (_Meles indica_) might be
+added perhaps, though it has a pig's snout, long legs, and long tail.
+Its native name is bhalloo-soor, _i.e._ the bear pig.
+
+Nos. 3 and 4, the chocaratouch and Mexican, differ so distinctly from
+the others in dentition, though in appearance similar to the European
+species, that a new genus, Taxidea, has been established for their
+reception.[2]
+
+    [2] In Lower California there is a variety of badger which differs
+        from described forms by its dark colouration and broad nuchal
+        stripe.
+
+Popular error, and old writers, describe the badger as having his legs
+shorter on one side than the other, and the latter, with philosophical
+ingenuity, have discovered therein a wonderful provision of nature; for,
+says Nicholas Cox, "He hath very sharp Teeth, and therefore is accounted
+a deep-biting beast; his back is broad, and his legs are longer on the
+right side than the left, and therefore he runneth best when he gets on
+the side of an Hill or a Cart roadway." The same author also
+states--"Her manner is to fight on her back, using thereby both her
+Teeth and her Nails, and by blowing up her Skin after a strange and
+wonderful manner she defendeth herself against any blow and teeth of
+Dogs. Only a small stroke on her Nose will dispatch her presently. You
+may thrash your heart weary on her back, which she values as a matter of
+nothing." If such a provision in the matter of legs did exist, one can
+realize the comfort of the uneven legs on a hill-side, but what gravels
+us is the discomfort of the return journey! The rolling, shambling gait
+that characterizes the badger is doubtless the origin of this absurd
+theory, which might be equally applied to any other member of the bear
+family. The European badger, as we find him in England, Wales, Scotland,
+and Ireland, stands about ten to twelve inches from the ground, has a
+long, stout body, with the belly near the earth. He has a coat so long
+and dense, and legs so short, that he appears to travel very nearly
+_ventre a terre_. The male is somewhat larger than the female, and
+weighs more. The weight of a male is about 25 lbs., that of a female
+about 22 lbs. When they are fat, or in grease in September, they will
+scale more. Badgers have been known to weigh up to about 40 lbs.; the
+largest I ever dug out and weighed was an old lean dog badger that
+scaled over 35 lbs.
+
+The head of the badger is wedge-shaped in general conformation, the back
+of the head large, the cheek-bones well sprung, and the muzzle fine and
+long. The nose or snout is black in colour, long and full; the eyes
+small, black, or black-blue; and the ears small, round, close-set, and
+neat. The strength of a badger's legs is most remarkable, and for his
+size (the animal only weighs from 19 lbs. to 35 lbs.) he possesses a
+most wonderful combination of bone and muscle. The legs are very short
+and the joints large; the feet, like the legs, are nearly black, and are
+large and long. The badger is a plantigrade, that is, when travelling he
+puts down the whole of his foot, including the heel, flat on the ground.
+His fore-feet are larger, longer, and better equipped for digging than
+his hind, but all are armed with long, sharp claws, and it is prodigious
+what he can effect with them. There is no mistaking his tracks--no
+animal's footprint is in the least like his. His heel is large and wide;
+this, and his four round, plump toes, leave an impression in sand, mud,
+or snow that cannot be confounded with any other. If the mud is deep, or
+there is snow on the ground, he also leaves the mark of his claws, but
+as a rule these are not observable, as he puts his weight on the sole of
+his foot--his tracks are usually almost in a line. The badger is cut out
+for a miner. His wedge-shaped head is capable of forcing a passage
+through sand and soft strata, whilst his armour-tipped diggers are
+worked by machinery that rivals in power the steam navvy; and whilst his
+fore-feet are going like an engine, throwing stones, bits of rock, sand,
+clay, and all that he comes in contact with between his fore-legs (which
+are set wide apart, leaving plenty of room under the chest), his
+powerful hams are working his hind-legs and feet like little demons,
+throwing back all that the fore-feet throw under his belly. And this is
+not all. His powerful jaw and teeth will cut, break, and tear all roots
+that obstruct his passage onwards, and it is most entertaining to see
+him going through earth, shale, and stone with the rapidity and
+sustained energy of a machine. No one who has not seen it would credit
+what one of these animals can do. I have often been defeated by their
+being able to penetrate more quickly than even a gang of men with
+pick-axe, spade, shovels, and crowbar could follow. And it is safe to
+say that as long as a terrier is not up to the badger, the badger is not
+only advancing quicker than the men (if his earth is on a hill-side),
+but has also, in nine cases out of ten, barricaded his retreat and
+scored a victory. I have known a badger, left for awhile by the terrier,
+bore his way straight up out to daylight and escape. The badger is
+covered with a thick, long-haired coat, which with a loose skin of
+extraordinary density and toughness forms a complete and effective
+armour. The hair on his head is short and smooth, and the sharp, clean
+black-and-white markings of his head give a very pretty and effective
+appearance to it. The general appearance in colour of a badger is a sort
+of silvery-grey, turning to black on the throat, breast, belly, and
+legs. Inverting the usual colouring of other animals, which is generally
+dark on the back, with lighter colouring on the belly and under the arms
+and thighs, the badger is lighter on the back and black underneath. Not
+only is this colouring peculiar to the badger, but his hair is unlike
+that of any other creature known to me, being light at the root and
+darker above.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The colour of a badger alters with age. The little cubs, till they are
+seven or eight months old, are a clean, bright, light silvery-grey; they
+then become yellower in their coats, a colour which they keep sometimes
+permanently, but which they generally change after two years for a suit
+of darker, purer grey. The badger's tail is about five inches long,
+covered with long, coarse, lighter-coloured hair than that on his body,
+and is of a yellowish-brown colour.
+
+The badger has another peculiar distinction that is somewhat mysterious,
+viz. a pouch, the vent of which is close under the root of the tail,
+and contains an oily foetid matter which he has the power of emitting.
+Different uses have been ascribed to this provision, such as that which
+ferrets and polecats have. I have never noticed a badger use it as has
+been suggested, as a mode of defence or annoyance, and am sure that this
+is not its purpose. But there is no doubt the badger sucks and licks
+this substance, whether by way of taking a tonic, a cooling draught, a
+stimulant, or other physic I cannot say. I am, however, inclined to
+believe, that from this source he is able to maintain his health and
+support life during those periods of seclusion and total retirement in
+his "earth" which have led naturalists to describe him as a hibernating
+animal.
+
+In this theory I am strengthened by a French author, Edmond Le Masson,
+who writes--"The badger does not always give evidence of his presence in
+his woody retreat.... There, should one go to see him, he may, from pure
+idleness, remain shut up, it being easy for him to support himself
+during the longest period of retirement by licking the secretion which
+oozes from the pouch under his tail." The author goes on to give an
+account which was sent to the French papers by M. Recope, Garde General
+at Marly-le-Roi, of a badger that was shut in a culvert without any food
+whatever for forty-five days, walled in on every side, and where no tree
+root could penetrate. A gamekeeper, a noted trapper, had blocked the
+exit, and tried in every way he could devise to trap him, from February
+18, 1853, to April 4, and when at last he succumbed to a ruse of the
+keeper's he was quite lively, and weighed nearly 19 lbs. It appears that
+however carefully his traps were set in the mouth of the exit, the
+badger came every night and rolled on them and struck them, as they will
+do when they suspect any human infernal machine. That he will remain
+for a week or two at a time without issuing from his "earth" is certain,
+but the most casual observer will see badger tracks in the snow in the
+severest weather, and I have never been able to find that there were no
+tracks in the snow issuing from the "earths" in winter for more than a
+week or two at a time. The badger is less active, eats less, goes fewer
+and shorter journeys in winter, and has a hibernating tendency; but the
+idea that the British species shuts himself up and takes to his bed
+through the winter months, and never comes forth till spring, is a
+fallacy.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3. Lower Jaw of Badger.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4. Dovetailed Jaws.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5. Skull of Badger--front view.]
+
+Having attempted a slight description of the badger as far as his
+exterior is concerned, I shall leave to "Dryasdust" the description and
+nomenclature of the badger's interior economy, as well as the
+enumeration, weights, and measurements of his bones and muscles. He
+possesses, however, one or two structural peculiarities that deserve a
+little attention. There is much similarity in the general conformation
+of the badger's and bear's skull, but the protecting ridge on the head
+is absent in the bear. What gives to the badger's jaw its proverbial and
+terrific force? To witness its work is to know that its power of biting,
+crushing, and holding must be the result of some peculiarly strong
+mechanical as well as muscular construction. The examination of the
+skull helps in the solution of the mystery. The conformation of the jaw
+is strong, and the muscles attached to it powerful; but besides this he
+has two distinguishing structural additions that give his jaws,
+furnished with his formidable teeth, the strength and retentive power of
+an iron vice. The first is that his lower jaws are locked into sockets
+in the skull, and are thereby made--unlike those of all other animals I
+know of--impossible of dislocation.[3] His head or skull, when stripped
+of flesh and bare, still retains the lower jaws in such a way that they
+cannot be displaced without fracturing the massive bones of the head or
+jaw. The teeth of a badger require respectful attention. There are
+eighteen teeth in the lower and sixteen in the upper jaw, in all
+thirty-four. The four big molars, two above and two below, are large and
+strong, the upper being much the larger and wider ones, the lower being
+longer and fitting within the upper, as do all the lower teeth. The four
+canines are large, thick, round, long and formidable, and are his chief
+weapons. The lower canines dovetail when the jaws close with the upper,
+but all the four points or ends turn outward and backward.
+
+    [3] The curved ridges of bone on the skull by which the lower
+        jaw is held in its place by gripping the condyle are more
+        or less well developed in most of the weasel family.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6. Skull--side view.]
+
+The second peculiarity arises from a high ridge of bone, standing
+straight up and running from the base of the skull to between the ears,
+giving a firm hold to the ligaments and tendons, and an additional
+leverage and length, which are again rendered more effective by passing
+over the high cheek-bones as over a pulley before reaching the jaws.
+There is a saying that "a badger never leaves go till he makes his teeth
+meet," and there is a foundation of truth in it. The length of time he
+will hold on to the limb of an enemy is certainly fearful, and the way
+in which his thick strong canines go through the bone. On one occasion,
+in Wales, a keeper residing near the place I was staying at thought he
+saw the badger's tail at the end of a badger-digging, and laid hold of
+it to draw him. He had made a terrible mistake, and had got hold of a
+hind-foot. The badger held him by the wrist for ten minutes with his arm
+stretched up the hole; when he let go his hold the hand was hanging by a
+few shreds, and had, of course, to be amputated. I have always drawn a
+badger when possible by the tail, as the use of the tongs is sometimes
+difficult, especially in certain holes and at great depths, and there is
+a liability for the tongs to give way, and then the badger charges in
+your face or through your legs. I have seen a badger's teeth break and
+fly off in chips from iron tongs, a sight and sound that is not
+pleasant. To one who knows how to do it, drawing by the tail is a
+simple, quiet, and effective way of "taking the brock."
+
+A badger has the proverbial nine lives that John Chinaman attributes to
+women and we to cats. You cannot kill a badger by a blow on the head,
+the structure is so dense. His brain is so well protected by the ridges
+of bone along his skull and over his eye-sockets, and by the strength
+and projection of his cheek-bones, as to make him all but invulnerable
+in that quarter. His skin is so thick and tough, and his coat so heavy
+and coarse, that shot will scarcely penetrate it; but he has one place
+as tender as a nigger's shins, and that is his nose, where, if he is
+struck once, he is instantly dispatched. I was witness of a scene in
+the hunting field with the Cleveland hounds during the mastership of the
+late Mr. Henry Turner Newcomen, which, however disgusting, illustrated
+the vitality of the badger. We thought we had run a fox to ground in a
+drain. The terriers were sent for, one was put in to bolt him, but after
+a quarter of an hour's attempt he came out, having given it up, with
+severe marks of punishment. One that could be depended on was then
+dispatched to ground, and digging operations commenced. As time went on
+we thought from the sound that it could not be a fox, and presently
+there was a charge down the drain, and a badger came bouncing and
+floundering out among the crowd of bystanders, the terrier holding on to
+him. The other terriers, barking furiously to join in the fray, excited
+the hounds in an adjoining field; they broke out past the whips, and
+nineteen couple were soon at the badger, who was entirely lost to view
+in the struggling and worrying mass. But he was plying his jaws all the
+time, as was evidenced by the howls of pain from the wounded hounds as
+they withdrew from this unaccustomed entertainment. The whips and others
+did their best to flog the hounds off, but this was not accomplished for
+at least ten minutes. After much bloodshed, and when the last hound had
+been choked off, the badger showed neither scratch nor wound, and looked
+as fresh as possible. Mr. Newcomen ordered a whip to despatch him and
+end the tragedy. The whip clubbed a weighted hunting-stock, striking him
+several smashing blows on the head, and left him apparently dead. A
+farmer having asked if he might have him to stuff, put him in a sack and
+carried him off. A few days later I met the farmer, Mr. R. Brunton, of
+Marton, and he told me that when he got home the badger was as lively as
+ever, so he put him on a collar and chain and fastened him to a kennel.
+The day following he thought, from the appearance of the badger, that he
+was hurt about the head, and with some difficulty examined him, and
+found that the lower jaw was injured. He thereupon got a revolver and
+fired a shot into his ear, and then he assured me the badger only shook
+his head. He was so taken aback that for a moment or two he thought of
+giving up the attempt to kill him, but firing a second ball into him
+behind the shoulder he put an end at once to the poor brute's
+sufferings.
+
+The badger, as I have said, is becoming very scarce in England, and is
+decreasing in numbers in France and other countries as well. There are,
+however, several English and Welsh counties where in woodlands he still
+is to be found in considerable numbers, and some districts where they
+are common enough. The badger is fairly plentiful in many parts of
+Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Hants, and Gloucestershire, along the
+Welsh border, and in Mid and South Wales. It is to be found also in
+Sussex, Wilts, occasionally in Surrey and Kent, and here and there
+through the Midland and home counties. It is becoming rare in the north
+of England, but still lingers in the North Riding of Yorkshire, chiefly
+in the districts of the hills and moors between Scarborough and York.
+In Lincolnshire it is to be found in places; it is extinct in Durham,
+and practically so in Northumberland, where within fifty years it was
+common enough.
+
+A Northumberland gamekeeper of my father's has told me he knew it in the
+Kyloe Craggs and the Howick Woods, and remembered his father taking him
+to see their dog tried at a badger near Belford. In none of these places
+are they to be found now. In my own district of Cleveland they were in
+1874 all but extinct. I remember as a boy two were caught in our
+neighbourhood, one in Kildale and one at Ayton; but in 1874 I had three
+young badgers sent me from Cornwall, dug out by one of my uncles, and
+these I turned out in my father's coverts, and secured for them the
+keeper's protection. Since then they have, with a few later
+introductions, held their own, and a few years ago I knew of nine badger
+"sets" in the vicinity, and some five on our own ground; but I regret
+that the hands of neighbours are against them.
+
+In Scotland the badger is now rare. In the north-eastern counties, where
+till recently he was to be met with in every wild woodland and forest
+district, he has entirely vanished. In Ross-shire and in the west he is
+occasionally found in places where the wild cat and marten are making
+their last stand against the keeper and his exterminating engine, the
+steel trap. In Ireland the badger is still found in the Wild West. I
+have come upon him in Connemara, near the Killery harbour, and have
+heard of him in Kerry and other counties.
+
+As to the distribution of the badger in Ireland I quote the following
+interesting letters from the _Field_:--
+
+"'Lepus Hibernicus' may be glad to know that the badger is still fairly
+common in the neighbourhood of Clonmel. The country people, who know
+them better under the name of 'earth-dogs,' in distinction to
+'water-dogs,' or otters, not unfrequently catch them in one way or
+another, and offer them for sale. Fortunately for the badger the demand
+is extremely limited."--Badger (Clonmel). "Permit me to coincide with
+'Lepus Hibernicus' respecting the plentifulness of the badger in
+Ireland. Some years since I was on a large estate in Co. Clare, and
+badgers were abundant on the domain and the adjoining property; I also
+found them numerous in the wilds of Galway. I have found and killed them
+in many parts of England and Wales, but have seen and trapped far more
+in the west of Ireland."--J. J. M. "Your correspondent, 'Lepus
+Hibernicus,' in the _Field_ of November 5, mentions that badgers are by
+no means uncommon in Ireland. I am in the west of Cornwall, and there
+are any amount here, a great deal too plentiful to please me, as I am
+sure they do a lot of harm to rabbits and game. I found the parts of a
+fowl in a field, evidently killed by a badger, as there was a trail not
+a foot away, and also a hole scratched, which could be the work of none
+other than a badger. I had two very big ones brought to me alive last
+week. They were caught by setting a noose of thin rope in their run. I
+should like to know a good way to exterminate them, as, though I shoot
+over a great deal of ground, I have never seen one out in daytime, but
+their trail is everywhere."--H. J. W. "The badger is by no means rare in
+the west of Clare, where I have trapped several."--A. H. G. "I beg to
+inform 'Lepus Hibernicus' that badgers are by no means scarce in this
+place."--A. R. Warren, Warren's Court, Lisarda, Cork. "The badger in
+this part of the Co. Cork is certainly not rare--Owen, Sheehy, Coosane,
+and Goulacullen mountains, with the adjoining ranges, afford shelter to
+a goodly number. Farm hands occasionally capture unwary ones, and offer
+them for sale as pets, or to test the mettle of the national terrier, or
+to be converted into bacon. A badger's ham is often seen suspended from
+the rafter of a farmer's kitchen."--J. Wagner (Dunmanway, Co. Cork).
+
+The counties in which I have had most acquaintance with the badger have
+been Radnorshire, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and
+Cornwall, but perhaps most of my experience has been gained in the
+last-named county, as far as digging for him is concerned; whilst it is
+at home in Cleveland that I have watched him for nearly twenty years,
+and gained some knowledge of his mode of life and habits. I am not sure
+whether there are not a few still left in the Cheviots and the districts
+of the Upper Tyne and Tweed. Up till about 1850 they were to be found on
+the Cleveland hills, or rather on their wooded sides and in the "gills."
+The last place where I heard of them being hunted was in the ravine and
+woods of Kilton.
+
+A badger's earth or warren is properly and generally called a "set" or
+"cete." They vary in respect of size, number of entrances, depth of
+galleries, and choice of site almost as much as rabbit-holes. Sometimes
+badgers will find sufficient room in rocks to make a home, and it is
+extraordinary the excavations they occasionally make in apparently solid
+rock. Usually, however, they select some softer material in which to
+make their underground passages and chambers. They will choose a quiet
+hillside away from man's habitation, amongst the whin bushes, or in the
+woods near a stream or small runner of water. Such a "set," if long
+established, will penetrate through earth, clay, and sub-soil, to some
+stratum of shale, or sand, or loose rock. Some of the galleries and
+chambers will be at a great distance from the surface, and some at an
+enormous depth. When a new earth is made I have always found the badger
+appropriate the holes of rabbits, and proceed to excavate, enlarge, and
+open them out. This operation of opening a new earth takes place
+constantly in the spring-time, great masses of material being thrown
+out; but as often as not the new house is abandoned before completed,
+and the subsequent labours of the family are devoted to repairing,
+enlarging, and making new front or back doors to the old place. In
+Cornwall I once tried my hand with my brother, some strong Cornishmen,
+and a team of terriers, at a very innocent-looking badger "set" situated
+in a level field. There were but three holes, and these not very far
+apart. The farmer told us that there had been badgers there all his
+life, and no one had ever been able to dig one out. This rather
+stimulated us than otherwise, and we had in the course of a few hours
+dug a trench some six feet deep, and were nearing the sounds of the
+subterranean conflict, which had been sustained by the terriers, when
+suddenly we found that we were above the sound, and we sank a shaft down
+three feet from the bottom of our trench, to find galleries and chambers
+in all directions. The battle had by this time moved, and we were in
+despair at the prospect of following on the level with a depth of nine
+feet of surface soil to be lifted in every direction we turned. I was
+listening at the bottom of the trench, having penetrated to the third
+storey of this underground barrack, when I distinctly heard the
+"bump-bump" of the badger below me. My companions came down and listened
+too, and there was not the slightest doubt that there was a fourth
+storey and labyrinth of passages some three or four feet below us, and
+for anything we knew another beyond. The day was far spent, the task was
+impossible, and the rest of our time was devoted to getting the
+terriers out, and making as good a retreat as we could before the
+victorious enemy.
+
+I should think this "set" was hundreds of years old, and some of the
+passages, the farmer told us, were a hundred yards long! As a rule a
+badger's hole descends rapidly at first, and then may branch into any
+number of by-ways and subterranean galleries. Whichever route you
+follow, however, you invariably come to a chamber or "oven," which is
+generally a sort of vaulted hall, where four ways meet, and which is, or
+has been, the living-room of the family at some previous time. Where
+there is an old-established "set" it is difficult to drive the badgers
+permanently away from it. They may leave it for a while from fancy, or
+because of disturbance, but they will certainly return.
+
+The badger and his wife have a regular spring cleaning after the winter
+is over, and about March and April a cart-load of winter bedding,
+rubbish, earth, and sweepings will be thrown in a few nights outside the
+front door. There is generally the old bedding left in one or two of
+the big chambers for the lady who is to be brought to bed in February,
+March, or April; and there is another turn-out after this interesting
+event has been accomplished. About the middle of June, in July and
+August, and as late as October and November, an extraordinary amount of
+fresh bedding will be taken in. On summer evenings I have watched the
+badgers at work, but regret that I cannot substantiate the following
+description:--"Badgers when they Earth, after by digging they have
+entred a good depth, for the clearing of the Earth out, one of them
+falleth on the back, and the other layeth Earth on the belly, and so
+taking his hinder feet in the mouth draweth the Belly-laden Badger out
+of the Hole or Cave; and having disburdened herself, re-enters and doth
+the like till all be finished."
+
+No, this is not how it is done, though it is a curious sight to see the
+real thing. The badger will come out, take a look round, and sit awhile
+close to the mouth of the hole. He will then shuffle about and get
+further from the hole. You will watch him descend into some
+bracken-covered hollow, and will see nothing more of him for awhile.
+Then you will hear him gently pushing and shoving and grunting, and know
+that he is very busy over something. He will reappear bumping along
+backwards, a heap of bracken and of grass or old straw, left from a
+pheasant feed, under his belly, and encircled by his arms and fore-feet.
+He will continue this most undignified and curious mode of retrogression
+to the earth, and will disappear tail first down his hole, still hugging
+and tugging at his burden.
+
+"It is very pleasant to behold them when they gather materials for their
+Couch, as straw, leaves, moss, and such-like; for with their Feet and
+their Head they will wrap as much together as a man will carry under his
+arm, and will make shift to get into their Cells and Couches" (_The
+Gentleman's Recreation_).
+
+I have not seen a badger make more than two such excursions by daylight,
+but have no doubt that after dark a considerable number of such
+journeys may be accomplished. For weeks together, on any morning, you
+may see the litter of bracken and grass strewing the way to his home and
+down the various entrances.
+
+And now let me again, with all possible respect, put some of our
+scientific friends right. It is not often that an amateur can; but a man
+who is not able to tell you everything, as these learned men do, about
+every living creature, may from a country life and experience be able to
+correct some errors in respect of one animal at least. M. Buffon, the
+immortal and wonderful natural historian, tells us that the badger is a
+solitary animal. This is the reverse of truth; he is less solitary than
+the fox. He is fond of company; he is monogamous, and clings closely and
+faithfully to his own wife. With badgers, as with the human race, the
+sexes are not precisely equal in numbers, and often, from the force of
+circumstances, a badger has to remain a celibate, but he is not a
+bachelor by choice. He may become a widower, but in either case he will
+travel far to seek a partner to share his shelter and his lot. It is not
+altogether rare to find an old solitary dog badger, who has loved and
+lost, or taken in late age to a hermit's cell; but he, as often as not,
+when he has failed to secure the companionship of the gentler sex, has
+found some other male to share his home, when they can live comfortably
+_en garcon_.
+
+Nor do the married pair shun the society of their kind. I have often
+seen large badger "sets" almost as full of badgers as a warren is of
+rabbits. One evening, near my house, I waited an hour of midge-plagued
+time to watch the badgers come out from a small "set," and was rewarded
+by seeing a procession of seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single
+hole, and I had them all in full view for something like twenty minutes.
+As this was in July they could hardly be one family. They were every one
+more than a year old, and a badger's family is usually two in number,
+sometimes three, and never more than four; and this last is exceedingly
+rare in my experience. In no sense, therefore, is the badger solitary.
+Indeed I have actually known myself several instances of a badger and
+fox living in apparent amity in the same earth, whilst I hardly ever saw
+a badger "earth" that was not either itself or the immediate vicinity
+tenanted by rabbits. As to the consistency of any friendship that exists
+between badgers and foxes and rabbits, I shall have more to say later
+on. I have, however, taken a badger and rabbit out of the same hole
+lying side by side. The badger is said to be the protector of the
+rabbit. He does not altogether deserve this title, and the rabbit enjoys
+the immunity in a badger's earth chiefly from the fact that the badger
+cannot follow it in the smaller holes without digging, an effort which
+in his estimation is, as a rule, not worth the candle.
+
+Buffon dwells on the cleanliness of the badger. He certainly is not the
+stinking animal he is accused of being. His house and himself are as a
+rule bright and cleanly looking, and it is only when in confinement,
+and deprived of the sanitary arrangements to which he is accustomed,
+that he becomes offensive. Writers are not correct in saying that he
+never deposits his dung in his earth, but as a rule he does not, and his
+habit is to go some little distance from his home, dig a hole, and there
+leave his excrement. He will use the same hole for a few days, and then
+cover it up with earth and make a new one. There is a smell about a
+badger "earth," but it is not disagreeable, and nothing like so rank and
+strong as that of a fox's. He is, however, often troubled with lice and
+ticks, so that it is desirable when your dogs have been to ground
+carefully to wash them. But in this respect a badger is not worse than
+sheep and goats, and with such a coat as he has it is no wonder that it
+is sometimes tenanted. The same distinguished authority states that the
+badger produces its young in summer, but I have never known this happen.
+March is the usual month, and the rule is not earlier than February nor
+later than April. A naturalist at Cambridge told me that he knew of a
+badger bitch that was many months in confinement (I think he said
+eighteen months), and gave birth to cubs--but I was not convinced of the
+accuracy of his statement that she had never had access to one of her
+kind. It is only fair to mention that Vyner, in his _Notitia Venatica_,
+states that "It is a fact perhaps not generally known, nevertheless
+curious, that badgers go twelve months with young. This fact I _learned
+from a neighbour of mine in Warwickshire_, who some years ago dug out in
+the spring a sow badger. She was confined in an outhouse for twelve
+months, at about which period she produced one young one. During her
+confinement it was impossible for her to have been visited by a male."
+
+That an animal of this size should go with young for such a period is so
+extraordinary, and so great an exception to the ordinary provisions of
+nature, that the theory requires much greater support than mere hearsay
+evidence. If it were a fact, or if it were the rule, the evidence to
+support the theory of twelve months' gestation should be overwhelming,
+considering the number of badgers that are in confinement. I have had
+many in confinement for long periods, and have never known them to give
+any evidence in support of this theory. I have kept a pair for a long
+period, but, like many other wild animals in confinement, they never
+bred. All sorts of theories exist as to the period of gestation in
+badgers, but I think I shall be very near the mark when I say that they
+go with young about nine weeks, and I conceive that the mistake made by
+those who have thought that they go over a year is due to the fact,
+which I have noticed, that a pair of badgers do not breed every year. I
+cannot decide whether there is any precise rule, but am inclined to
+think that they breed once every two years. There are so many accounts
+of single badgers kept in confinement bringing forth young after a much
+longer period of gestation that it appears possible that the female has
+the power known to be possessed by the Roe-deer doe of postponing the
+operation of parturition for a considerable time.
+
+The badger is not by nature a ferocious animal, though the female will
+repel with the greatest savagery any approach when she has young, but so
+will a hen with chickens. The temperament of the badger is a gentle,
+shrinking one. No animal prefers a more quiet life, loving a warm bed in
+a dry dark corner of earth or rocks. He loves to sleep and meditate in
+peace for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. He lies not far
+within his entrance hall during the spring and summer, and on a hot day
+he will sometimes come to the mouth of his hole. In the evening, in June
+or July, he will come outside, sit looking into the wood or shuffle
+round the bushes, stretch himself against the tree-stems, or have a
+clumsy romp with his wife and little ones; and when the daylight dies he
+will hurry off, rushing through the covert for his nightly ramble. In
+the summer months he will travel as far as six miles from home, but he
+is in bed again an hour before sunrise.
+
+It is only at this time of the year that he can be hunted above ground.
+This can be done with a few beagles or harriers on a moonlight night,
+when, finding him in the open, they will give a merry chase and fine
+cry, and a run of several miles without a check. If his earths are
+stopped, and he finds no other refuge, he will be brought to bay. In
+some districts I have known sacks put into the mouths of the most used
+holes of a set, the open end of each sack having a running noose pegged
+into the ground, thus providing an astonishing reception on his return
+as he charges in, disturbed or pursued in his midnight ramble. By this
+means he is taken alive and unhurt, being bagged and secured in his
+attempt to enter. At other times of the year, when the days are short
+and the nights longer, he comes out later in the evening, waits for a
+moment at the mouth of his earth, takes a preliminary sniff round, and
+then rushes off at the top speed into the covert.
+
+The badger is easily domesticated if brought up by hand, and proves an
+interesting and charming companion. I had at one time two that I could
+do anything with, and which followed me so closely that they would bump
+against my boots each step I took, and come and snuggle in under my coat
+when I sat down. I was very much attached to them, but having to leave
+for the London season, I came home after a prolonged absence to find
+that they had reverted to their natural disposition, and had forgotten
+him who had been a foster-parent to them. As I could not fondle them
+without a pair of hedging-gloves on, and they no longer walked at my
+heel, I made them a home in the woods, where the thought of their
+happiness has helped me to bear my loss.
+
+Many interesting stories are told of tame badgers. Here is one taken
+from the _Field_: "A few months ago, a farmer in the Cotswolds unearthed
+a badger and one youngster about two months old, which were sent to Mr.
+Barry Burge, Northleach, who only kept the former a few weeks, when she
+died. The orphan was petted very much by its owner. In a short time it
+would follow Mr. Burge through the fields and streets, and answer to
+the call like a dog. It is an amusing sight to see the badger along with
+its master riding a bicycle. A short time ago Mr. Burge had a fox cub,
+which he has succeeded in taming. This fox has taken a great fancy to an
+Irish terrier, with which she plays continually. The badger, which is
+now about seven months old, is loose about the house at times, but
+generally spends most of its time in company with the fox, to which it
+is greatly attached, all sleeping snugly together."--G. W. Duckett,
+Northleach, R.S.O., Gloucestershire.
+
+M. le Masson gives a pretty account of his tame badger, which, though it
+loses much in translation, I give in English. "I brought up and kept for
+more than two years a female badger, which died at last from obesity.
+She had been taken from her mother when only eight days old and suckled
+by a Normandy bitch, which had already reared me some wolf whelps.
+'Grisette,' as she was named, was, like all her kind, omnivorous; meat,
+beetles, fruits, certain kinds of vegetables, in fact, all and
+everything was welcome to her healthy appetite. When out walking in the
+country, where she always readily followed me, she would unearth rats,
+moles, and young rabbits, which she could scent at the bottom of their
+holes. In spite of her thorough domesticity, I never succeeded in
+overcoming her antipathy to dogs, and more especially to cats, which she
+chased most viciously did they dare to enter the kitchen where she
+reigned as queen; and where, such was her sensitiveness to cold, she had
+made her bed against the wall in the chimney corner. Here in winter,
+buried in her furs, she slept curled up for whole days together. But
+which of us is without a fault? A little greedy without being actually
+voracious, sweet Grisette sometimes ventured on to the stone-work of the
+cooking-stove, and from there was able to discover from which of the
+saucepans was exhaled the most savoury odour, and never did she make a
+mistake on that score!"
+
+Du Fouilloux states in his _Venerie_:--"Je ay veu aux blereaux prendre
+deuant moy les petis cochons de laict, lesquelz ilz tray-noient tout
+vifz en leur terrier. C'est vne chose certaine qu'ilz en sont plus
+friandz que de toutes autres chairs: car si on passe vn carnage de
+porceau par dessus leurs terriers, ilz ne faudront iamais de sorter pour
+y aller."
+
+The badger is credited with a special love for pork. I have seen a
+statement in an old volume of the _Gentleman's Recreation_, in which the
+writer refers to the taste of the badger for pork. "They love
+Hog's-flesh above any other; for take but a piece of Pork and train it
+over a badger's Burrow, if he be within, you shall quickly see him
+appear without."
+
+Badgers are omnivorous. In their wild state their food is principally
+roots and insects--they are especially fond of beetles and such
+creatures as are to be found just below the surface of the ground, or
+under the decaying dung of cattle. The natural history books say they
+eat frogs. This may be true, but I have not observed it. I have tried
+badgers in confinement with all sorts of insects and grubs, but I never
+could get them to touch slugs or worms. They are carnivorous, and eat
+mice, rats, voles, and moles. They will take a rabbit out of a trap,
+turn it inside out, and eat all the meat, leaving the skin behind,
+turned neatly with the fur inside. They are also fond of very young
+rabbits, and will dig a shaft through several feet of solid earth direct
+on to the nest. But when this has been stated, nearly all has been said
+with regard to their propensity to damage in game coverts. I am
+supported by other observers in this opinion; for instance, a recent
+writer in the _Field_ who says:--"In reply to E. T. D'Egmont's inquiry
+about catching badgers, I have never found them do much harm to the
+nests of winged game; but they are death on rabbits, and much resemble a
+fox in finding a young one appetizing. Their skins would make good
+waistcoats, but, apart from that, I would not destroy them upon any
+property of my own, because they do so much more good than harm in
+divers ways. We have a small property in my family, where foxes and
+badgers lie up together in close proximity to a rabbit warren, upon the
+inhabitants of which they feed. It is a spot practically unknown to the
+outward gaze of man, as it is difficult of access; and I should fancy
+that any one attempting to attack their stronghold would meet with a
+stubborn resistance. Badgers mostly go seeking for food during the
+night-time. Where they abound, one occasionally meets them walking
+quietly along a path, with their snout low down, and occasionally giving
+a kind of grunt like a mongoose. They are very fond of honey. A bag
+pegged back over the entrance to their holes is a good way of catching
+them."
+
+They do not hunt for rabbits or game like a fox or cat, and though there
+are undoubtedly instances of their taking partridge and pheasant eggs,
+in my experience I have never known it done by those around me, nor from
+other places where they have ample opportunity of doing so. I have known
+a pheasant rear a young brood on an earth tenanted by badgers; but,
+curiously enough, I have known a similar case on a fox's earth,
+containing a vixen and cubs, and I cannot defend the general character
+of a fox in regard to game. Still it may be taken that a badger, though
+occasionally eating rabbits and rarely eggs, does not hunt for game,
+ground or feathered, or do a hundredth part of the damage done by a fox
+or a cat. There have always been more rabbits, hares, and pheasants in a
+hollow near my house, where there is a large colony of badgers, than in
+any other part of the coverts. The badger has a special weakness for
+wild honey, and the grubs of wasps and humble bees. The wildest and most
+unconciliatory badgers I have ever had in confinement would come out and
+eat a wasp's nest, and they will hunt every bank and hedgerow in July
+and August, routing out every wasp's and hornet's nest in the
+country-side. A keeper told me that upon one occasion, when he was
+walking along the covert edges in summer-time about nine o'clock in the
+evening, his attention was arrested by a curious chapping, champing
+noise, and looking over the fence he saw an old badger with his head in
+a huge wasp's nest hanging in a bramble bush, and he was crunching up
+and eating with the greatest gusto the wasps and grubs, quite undeterred
+by the thousand angry insects that covered his head and body. In truth,
+I must admit that while he is thus useful, he has been known to enter a
+garden and upset the hives and purloin the honey, being as fond of it as
+his larger cousins, the bears.
+
+I must also bring another charge against him. Let me introduce this
+painful subject by giving the following correspondence from the _Field_
+newspaper:--
+
+"Wilfred writes--'I shall be obliged if you will allow me to ask your
+readers whether they have known old badgers to kill fox cubs. Last year
+our M.F.H. gave a neighbouring keeper a litter of cubs. He put them into
+a natural empty fox-earth, and kept them shut in until they had got
+fairly on their feed, and were quite at home. When he opened the earth,
+and allowed them to come out, they played about, and all went well for
+two or three days, when he found one at a little distance from the mouth
+of the earth dead, with its skull smashed in, and very much bitten
+about the head and neck. He lost the lot in the same way in a few days.
+He thought an old badger or fox killed his cubs. About this time I got
+five cubs, and put them into an empty artificial fox-earth. All went
+well with them for some time after they played out, when the keeper
+reported finding one about twenty yards from the earth dead, and killed
+after the same fashion as my neighbour's cubs, and I too lost mine. In
+the same artificial earth I had a natural litter this season, and the
+cubs played out well; but on the keeper telling me he did not think they
+were there now, I went to examine the earth, found the foxes gone, and
+the earth occupied by an old badger. I had a litter of fox cubs in the
+deer park here, where I live, and all went well with them until ten days
+ago, when one was picked up dead, killed in the same manner as those
+last year, and another was found dead yesterday. I feel quite certain
+myself that they were killed by an old badger or an old fox, for I am
+sure if killed by dogs they would not smash the skull and neck. I shall
+be glad if any one can enlighten me on this subject.'"
+
+In reply to "Wilfred" there were several letters, among which were the
+following:--
+
+    "Sir,--Undoubtedly; every one that they can get near, and more
+    especially hand-reared cubs that have not got the old foxes to
+    protect them. I was first told this by old Jem Hills, the
+    well-known huntsman of the Heythrop, in his latter years; and
+    subsequently I had positive proof of what he said. On one
+    occasion a man brought a fine half-grown cub to my house which
+    he had picked up dead in the road he came along. It was bitten
+    most severely through and behind the shoulder, and I at once
+    remarked to a friend that was with me, 'That is the work of a
+    badger.' On going down to an earth where I knew there was a
+    natural litter, we found tracks of a badger all about the place,
+    as if he had been hunting the cubs. Having at the time eight
+    cubs that I was hand-rearing in an artificial drain, I thought
+    it was high time to look after them, for though regularly fed,
+    I did not always watch to see whether they all came to feed.
+    However, I did so that evening, and only two came, and these
+    looked very wild and scared. I then searched the plantation, and
+    picked up four of my cubs killed quite recently, and bitten in
+    the same savage way. A few weeks after we killed a big boar
+    badger in the drain. Several years later, I was again rearing
+    some hand-bred cubs, and everything went well until they were a
+    good size, when one morning I found one of them killed,
+    evidently by a badger; and I eventually took four more of them,
+    and the others were all driven away. This badger beat me for
+    some little time, but I got him at last. Though old badgers and
+    foxes are often found in the same earth, more frequently when
+    one of the latter has been run to ground by hounds, yet, as a
+    rule, they give each other wide berths. If your correspondent
+    'Wilfred' wishes to save his cubs, let him kill every badger as
+    soon as possible."
+
+    "Sir,--Replying to 'Wilfred's' question, 'Do badgers kill fox
+    cubs?' I cannot say they do, because there are no badgers in
+    this district; but having at different times had young foxes
+    killed in the way he describes, namely, bitten in the head, I
+    can assure him that it is done by an old dog fox. Should he wish
+    for further information, I refer him to Mr. John Douglas, Royal
+    Hotel, Pudding Chare, Newcastle-on-Tyne, who will tell him of
+    the experience he gained when at Clumber, under the Duke of
+    Newcastle."
+
+    "Sir,--I may tell 'Wilfred' that I have never known old badgers
+    kill fox cubs, though I have studied the habits of both for
+    nearly forty years. No doubt an old vixen, with no cubs of her
+    own, killed his; the dog fox will not do this. Indeed, he will
+    cater for all the cubs of his own get, but a strange vixen is
+    very apt to kill any cubs which have no mother of their own. I
+    have known a terrier bitch kill a litter of foxhound puppies,
+    and one of my Irish terriers will kill puppies if she has the
+    chance. As to the 'natural' litter which 'Wilfred' found gone,
+    they had merely been shifted by the vixen; as soon as the cubs
+    get able to travel they are always shifted. Last year I had two
+    tame wild ducks sitting in a hedge. A badger passed regularly
+    within a yard of them every night, but they were undisturbed.
+    This year a fox took one of them just before it hatched. I was
+    sorry to read the other day in the _Field_ an account of two old
+    and four cub badgers having been dug out in Gloucestershire.
+    There is surely no sport in this, and the badgers are destitute
+    of grease now, whereas at Michaelmas they are fat enough to
+    provide grease for all the rheumatic people in the parish. I
+    like to catch one with my terriers when the harvest moon shines.
+    Sometimes I get up in a convenient tree near the earth and watch
+    the badgers feeding on the crazy roots. How fond they are of the
+    wild bees' honey, and also of wasps' nests. Let me advise
+    'Wilfred' to read the exhaustive and interesting account given
+    in a letter to the _Times_ (October 24, 1877), and quoted in
+    _Cassell's Natural History_, vol. ii. It thus concludes--'The
+    badgers and the foxes are not unfriendly, and last spring a
+    litter of cubs was brought forth very near the badgers; but
+    their mother removed them after they had grown familiar, as she
+    probably thought they were showing themselves more than was
+    prudent.' Mr. Ellis of Loughborough was the author of the
+    letter, and he had rare opportunities of studying the habits of
+    badgers."
+
+I am loth to do it, but wishing to be an impartial historian, am
+compelled to state that the badger is capable of vulpicide. As a rule he
+can put up with an occasional lodger of the fox family, and live happily
+with him, and from his superior qualities as an architect of
+subterranean dwellings, he is on the whole an encourager of foxes. He
+often gives up his spacious apartments to a vixen in the spring, and
+submits to eviction. A fox will often take possession of a badger's
+earth, new or old; and in order to persuade foxes to take to a
+particular covert, no surer method can be pursued than to get badgers to
+make earths when they are required. But even a badger's patience can be
+exhausted, as the following history of my own experience will show. I
+would premise, however, that I do not credit the oft-repeated story that
+the fox gets rid of the badger by leaving his evacuations in the
+badger's earth. Being the less and weaker animal, all a fox does is
+allowed on sufferance. My suspicions of a badger's capability to wage
+war on foxes were first aroused some years ago. The badgers had made a
+fine double set of earths on the north side, of a hill in a neighbouring
+larch wood, where no effort on my part to get foxes to breed and stay
+had succeeded. No sooner, however, was a colony of badgers established
+than foxes haunted the holes and covert. In a succession of years there
+was as certain to be a litter of fox cubs in the badger earth as a
+sunrise on the morrow.
+
+What happened each spring was that the foxes and badgers frequented both
+sets indiscriminately till about March. When the vixen lay in the
+badgers abandoned the set of holes where she was, and restricted
+themselves to the other set some twenty yards distant. Year after year
+the fox cubs prospered and grew up, till one summer the keeper found a
+fox cub in a field with his head bitten in two and terribly worried. I
+did not know how to account for it. I watched the vixen and the other
+cubs one evening to see that they were all right, and saw them, but
+found they had left the earth and were in the covert. For two years all
+went well and the foxes were unmolested, and then occurred something
+that gave me a clue to the death of the cub three years before. Two
+vixens lay in at the badgers' earth, and brought up their families of
+seven and four respectively, till they were about one-third grown. There
+were then to my knowledge at least four badgers and twelve foxes in
+these two earths. On one or two occasions the stillness of the night was
+broken by the veriest pandemonium at the earth, but still I did not
+think much of it. At the end of the hunting season, at the end of April,
+when the cubs were seven or eight weeks old, and a fortnight after the
+hounds had been through the coverts, I found the largest and finest of
+the vixens dead, and thought that, in spite of the earths being open,
+she must have been chopped by the hounds. A post-mortem examination, as
+well as the improbability of a vixen with cubs being out in the early
+part of the day, convinced me that she had not been killed by hounds.
+She seemed to have been badly bitten through the legs and thighs but not
+on the body. From this time the other vixen and all the cubs left the
+badgers' earths and remained in the covert. It was on this occasion that
+an attempt to find out how many badgers there were in these earths was
+rewarded by seeing seven full-grown badgers emerge from a single hole.
+It was rough, no doubt, that the badgers should be invaded by two large
+families of smelling foxes, and no doubt their patience had become
+exhausted. Still I could not tolerate this kind of behaviour, and so I
+had a dig at them, took two old ones out, and transported them to
+Scotland. The following year there was peace and fox cubs again. The
+year after, however, the vixen and her cubs took off into the covert
+very early after another bit of Bank Holiday business, at a time of
+night when all respectable people were quietly in bed. And yet all
+through the year foxes are in the earth, and this spring, as heretofore,
+a litter of cubs has been raised, but removed to another earth at a safe
+distance from the badgers. I have never heard of badgers taking the
+offensive against foxes; they will never molest a fox or vixen unless
+their earth is invaded, and in my case if I had had no badgers in this
+covert I should have had no foxes; and whilst it is annoying that the
+fox cubs and vixen should be driven out, and perhaps occasionally
+killed, the drawback is slight when it is considered that as long as
+there are badgers there will be a litter of cubs, which nine times out
+of ten will get safely off.
+
+There are every now and then albino badgers reported, but I have never
+seen one alive. I think, however, they are more subject to albinism than
+most animals. I do not know of a case of melanism.
+
+"_White Badger at Overton, Hants._--While digging for badgers on April
+30, we came across two dog badgers in the same earth, one of which was
+quite white, the colour of a white ferret, with pink eyes.
+Unfortunately, the terriers punished him so much he had to be destroyed.
+I have helped to dig out a great many of these animals, but never saw
+nor heard of a white one before."--T. P.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+There are several methods by which the badger can be taken alive, or
+killed, with ease. I am familiar with several successful ways of
+trapping him. The reader, if he is not aware of these, must not expect
+me to enlighten him, as my object in writing is to arouse an interest in
+his preservation, not to facilitate his destruction. It may be as well
+to state, however, that the inhuman engine, the steel trap (by which so
+many of the birds and beasts that frequented the wild woods of England
+and Scotland have been exterminated) is an instrument that arouses the
+suspicion of a badger at once, and he is as clever in avoiding it as an
+old-fashioned rat. The badger if caught in a steel trap will frequently
+bite his leg or foot clean off. In my opinion there are two legitimate
+methods of hunting the badger. First, that of a straight-forward attack
+on his fortress; and should it be an old-established earth, it may be
+the end of the longest day will not see the battle ended. There are, of
+course, the fortunes of war--a lucky engagement, a wrong turn on the
+part of the defender, a successful trench quickly cutting off his
+retreat--which may deliver him unexpectedly into your hands; or the
+enemy may outwit you altogether, conducting a masterful retreat, with
+gallant sorties on the dogs, and by continually changing his front drive
+you to abandon works, trenches, and operations that have cost great
+labour and time; thus you may be left with a tired and wounded pack of
+terriers, exhausted sappers, and the badger, having blocked and
+barricaded his retreat with soil, stones, and sand, is lost. The war
+thus made is an equal one: you attack him on his own ground in his
+fortress where he is acquainted with every passage, gallery, and
+casement; he is armed to the teeth and armour-plated, and can drive a
+road forward, downward, or upward with extraordinary rapidity. It is
+true you may have many terriers, but he has an advantage over your
+forces. Only one of your dogs can engage at a time, and the badger has
+the advantage of weight, size, knowledge of the ground, and familiarity
+with the dark--in fact, in every respect except those of courage and
+endurance, which in some terriers may equal his own. The other method,
+less sure, depends on taking the badger off his guard, and is more in
+the character of an ambuscade under cover of night. When the badgers are
+away from home you block up their earths, placing sacks with running
+nooses in the mouth, in the most frequented holes. Station one of your
+party near the "set," and you may either take a small pack of hounds and
+draw the country for a few miles round, and hunt him like a fox, getting
+a run across country and a fine cry; or you may beat the neighbouring
+coverts with men and dogs of any description that are trained to hunt
+the badger.
+
+In the following, taken from an article which appeared in a newspaper,
+there is a good account of night hunting.
+
+"Owing to his shy and retiring habits, rather than to the scarcity of
+the animal, probably less is known about the badger than about any wild
+animal left in England at the present time. There is a prevalent notion
+that the badger is exceedingly rare, and also that he is harmless;
+neither of these ideas is quite correct. In the west especially the
+badger is fairly common, but escapes notice owing to his retiring
+disposition. Whether he does harm to feathered game or not is a moot
+point, but his tracks have been distinctly noticed round plundered
+nests; it is certain, however, that he does great damage to ground game
+by digging out 'stops' of young rabbits in the spring and summer.
+
+"When hunted after the fashion generally adopted in the west, he affords
+excellent sport to those who are prepared to face a long tramp and the
+loss of some of their night's rest. The prosaic way of digging them out
+of the earth involves much labour, and has in it no element of sport;
+while attempting to catch badgers in traps is about as feasible as
+trying to catch birds by putting salt on their tails. Driving them into
+sacks fixed in the earth is unsatisfactory, as a good game dog is
+necessary to press the badger hard, or he will turn from the earth and
+seek shelter elsewhere; while, if you have a good dog, the sacks are
+unnecessary except for the reception of the badger when caught by the
+dog.
+
+"The paraphernalia of the chase are simple, namely, a good dog, a pair
+of badger-tongs, and a sack. A really good dog is very difficult to
+obtain; the favourite kind is a cross-bred bull-terrier, about forty
+pounds in weight; pure-bred bull-terriers, for some reason or other, do
+not seem to give satisfaction. The 'tongs' have wooden handles, and iron
+heads with blunt teeth for grasping the badger when held by the dog. For
+a successful hunt it is necessary to observe which way the badger
+travels from the earth. A favourite spot is the slope of a hill, or
+high-lying fields, where they may be easily tracked by the 'roots,'
+_i.e._ small holes which they scratch in the ground in search of
+beetles and roots of various kinds. They rarely descend into low-lying
+meadows, except to drink. Choose a starlight night with a slight breeze
+blowing, and approach the earth up the wind. Do not hurry your dog; if
+he knows his work, he will range freely, but he often takes a long time
+to puzzle out the track. If you miss him, go on slowly in the direction
+in which you last saw him, often stopping to listen.
+
+"'What was that?' The dry sticks crack in a hedge far below you. 'Hark!
+two sharp eager barks; what does it mean?' Why, that Grip is wheeling
+out in a half-circle to gain slightly on the badger, and then to dash in
+and get him by the head. Run now as you never ran before. Head over
+heels into a ditch; never mind, up and on again--the best dog can't hold
+a badger for ever. There they are out in the open, Grip with a tight
+hold of the badger by the side of the head, with his legs tucked back
+out of harm's way. Grasp him with the tongs as near the neck as
+possible. Take off the dog, some one. Hold the bag. Hoist our
+grey-coated friend into the air, and lower him into the sack; he weighs
+at least thirty pounds. The dog is hardly marked, and you haven't torn
+more than three rents in your nether garments getting through that last
+thorn hedge. Altogether, every one agrees that it was a satisfactory
+little run.
+
+"The old English sheep-dog I have known do well for the other method.
+The badger when pursued makes straight for home, blunders headlong into
+the hole, only to find that his efforts to get in are closing the mouth
+of the sack, that retreat or fighting are alike in vain, and that he is
+an imprisoned bagman, without having struck a blow in self-defence. It
+is not uncommon for a badger thus pursued to stand at bay, when a good
+dog may keep him in play, or hold on, till you come up and secure him.
+No doubt there is amusement and excitement in this moonlight chase, and
+to some it is preferable to the arduous labour with pick, spade, axe,
+and terrier."
+
+To my mind, however, there is something more interesting and exciting in
+the long-sustained conflict and labour of the latter, for which you
+require perseverance, wit, patience, and courage on the part of man and
+terrier. The courage and endurance that a good terrier will display when
+need requires before such a foe, will fill his owner's heart with joy
+and pride. A good terrier is a veritable treasure; the price of a sure,
+game, and determined one is far above rubies. Picture what it means for
+a small terrier to enter into the bowels of the earth to find, to cope
+with, and for long hours in dust and darkness in the tortuous maze to
+keep up an unequal fight with an enormously superior foe, whose grunts
+and clattering teeth add terror to his charges down the echoing ways.
+Yet I have had not a few that, hour after hour, on their backs or their
+sides, would lie up to a badger, keeping him cornered, and continuously
+give tongue with no voice to direct them. Should the badger charge, such
+a terrier would rather die than let him leave the corner to which he has
+been driven, and will return fighting and facing his huge opponent,
+driving him inch by inch into the _cul de sac_, caring neither for bite
+nor wounds, and making noise enough to let you know where the battle
+rages. It is no part of his duty to tackle the badger. A good terrier
+knows this, and will only resort to his teeth should the badger attempt
+to force a passage. If it comes to close quarters, such a terrier will
+draw back his fore-legs under his body, take the attack full in the
+face, and trust to seizing the badger by the neck. A badger when
+attacked generally bites upwards, _i. e._ he lowers his head and turns
+the back of his head downwards. Nothing makes the heart beat faster
+than, with head to the earth, to hear the din of this subterranean
+warfare carried along the dark galleries to the day. You have sent in
+one of your best terriers; he has tried by cajolery and caresses, by
+cries, by straining at his chain to be allowed the honourable
+distinction of first blood. You have dispatched him with your blessing,
+and he has quickly and silently started on his journey into the unknown.
+You listen to him forcing his passage, drawing himself round corners,
+scratching away some accumulation or fall from the roof, and hear his
+eager panting as he winds his foe. Presently you hear a low sharp bark,
+then another, then two or three more, next a bumping, thumping noise; it
+is the badger, who has waited to see who the intruder is, and, rousing
+himself, is retreating. The terrier barks no more, but you can hear the
+thump-thump of the badger, followed by the efforts of the dog to keep up
+with him. They are now a long way in, and you can plainly hear the bark
+again. Soon the fight draws nearer, and the terrier's cry comes to your
+ear with regularity and clearness; but the badger is only disputing the
+way, he has not yet been driven with his back against the wall. The
+terrier redoubles his activity, you can hear him feinting at the badger,
+sharp give-and-take, but no foolish attempt to lay hold. After ten
+minutes the badger again retreats, probably up the hill, and you have to
+listen on the surface or at the higher holes of the set till you can
+hear them again. At last you catch a faint sound, they are still moving,
+now stationary, now further on; then they seem to stay in one place.
+There is the steady yap-yap-yap of the dog just distinguishable to the
+ear.
+
+Quick, every hand to work. A trench six feet deep, or deeper if
+necessary, must be cut across the set to cut off the badger from the
+passages. With pick, spade, and shovel the work goes on, while some one
+listens to know whether the scene of battle moves. If it does, the
+badger may have found a side gallery, and gone far enough, or he may
+have charged the dog. He may have passed by a different road beneath
+your feet in the trench; but if the terrier has succeeded in keeping him
+face to face and engaged, yet not driving him so hard as to make him
+charge, you may be successful in an hour or two, and find that your
+cutting intersects the passage in which the badger and the terrier are
+engaged. If the badger suspects you are cutting off his only means of
+escape he will charge and fight, and the terrier will sometimes be
+unable to back fast enough; then there will be a meeting of teeth and
+jaws, the badger holding the dog through the head, jaw, or nose. The
+dog's smothered cries of anger and pain make you strain every nerve to
+get to his relief.
+
+When the badger at last leaves go, the terrier's turn comes, and now
+with blood up he drives back the badger to his end of the hole with
+every determination to keep him there. After two or three turns like
+this, if the dog has been in an hour or two, he will probably come out
+for a breath of air for a moment. He should be immediately taken,
+fastened up, watered, and kept in reserve for future contingencies, and
+the best terrier for sticking up be sent in with the utmost haste. If a
+minute has been spent in doing this, every moment will have been used by
+the badger in barricading the passage against the dog and burying
+himself. This once accomplished, you may as well whistle for your badger
+as continue digging, for he may have got down into some other gallery,
+or have buried himself so that neither dog nor man can find him. Of one
+thing you may be sure, that whilst you are speculating what has become
+of him, he is digging at a prodigious rate, or has already made his
+escape by some secret stair.
+
+If, however, you are quick, terrier number two has interrupted master
+badger as he is at work and lets you know. "It's all right," "Come on,"
+"He's here," "I've got him," "He's got me," "You beast," "Get back,"
+"I'll hold him," and spade and shovel and pick are hard at work again.
+Backs and arms are aching with lifting at high pressure out of the deep
+trench. You dig on, blocking the hole as the roof falls in, but every
+now and then the shovels clear it for a moment to give the dog air. And
+now the game has shown itself. A terrible charge down the hole sends out
+the terrier; and the badger, seeing the men at work, backs again,
+followed by the dog. Now all is excitement. Every snap, haunch, grunt,
+groan, and yell in the fight is heard. A favourite's life in the
+balance! The prize in view! The other terriers are tugging at their
+chains, frantic to join the fray, yelling fit to split their throats. It
+is maddening for them to see the dust and commotion in the trench, to
+hear the sound of battle so near, to wind the enemy, to hear the cry of
+their fighting and perhaps wounded companion, and not to be allowed to
+share in the glory of the final action. Now is the time if you have a
+terrier to enter to see what he is made of, but there is no time to
+waste on education. You are close up to the badger, he cannot be an
+arm's-length off. Draw your dog, the badger will then turn his tail to
+you to dig, or he will charge out. Be ready with the tongs, and a good
+dog in case he charges. But if he turns tail get hold of it with a good
+grip. A long pull and a steady pull will draw him out, bouncing,
+lunging, and snapping. Now, boys, ready with the sack! Dogs off. All
+want steady nerves now; three hands on the sack mouth to keep it open,
+and take care of your fingers! A twirl round and a quick plunge, and the
+badger is in the bag. Don't let go his tail till you have slipped the
+cord on his hind-leg, and made the other end of the cord fast to the bag
+mouth and to a tree. I have seen a badger go through a sack like a
+bullet through paper, and it is well to make all as safe as possible.
+
+M. Edmond le Masson, in his book on hunting fox and badger, severely
+deprecates tailing a badger. He denounces the danger and folly of it,
+and gives an amusing account of his falling into a trench at the
+critical moment as follows:--
+
+"One fine day, or rather one cursed day, when I was sweating blood and
+water to get a monster badger out of his earth, a venerable patriarch,
+white with years, who resisted my aching tired arms and weary back with
+all his strength, the earth gave way and I fell back, rolling over with
+the animal, and there I was at the bottom of the abyss in a veritable
+pandemonium. Bruised and breathless, I was conscious enough to know that
+I was in very bad company, with four more badgers, a furious mother and
+three young ones, and not so young either but that one of them was able
+to tear from me a large piece of the most indispensable part of my
+attire, which placed me in a position of cruel embarrassment, and
+obliged me to wait till the shades of night enabled me to get home with
+decency. The most humiliating part of the adventure was that all these
+cursed brutes, father, mother, and children, made the most insolent
+retreat over my stomach to escape from their earth, and then took off
+straight across country and escaped. From this moment I have felt a
+ferocious malice against all badgers, whether big, middling, or little,
+and I never go down into the trench now without having a Lefaucheux
+revolver and a Devisme revolver, a long dagger knife, and a sharp Toledo
+colichemarde!"
+
+But let not ingenuous youth think that to enjoy the sport all he has to
+do is to take a spade and any reputable terrier. He might as well try,
+like Dame Partington, to stop the rising tide with a mop! Before so
+serious an enterprise as a badger digging be undertaken, the wise man
+will see to it that all the materials are ready, and let him be sure
+that he has the first necessity--the stout heart to go through with a
+tough job when once started. I have, with my brother, Mr. J. A. Pease,
+started at 7.30a.m. from home, worked a summer's day with a slight
+refreshment at one, handled pick and shovel and spade, fought the
+terriers, and gone on through the afternoon, evening, and a black wet
+night, without even a drop of water to slake our parched throats,
+deserted by all but one faithful workman, and on till the grey dawn of
+another day, which found us as weary, wet, and wounded, and as
+disreputable a looking company of three men and four terriers as ever
+survived a bloody action. At five o'clock we secured a splendid pair of
+badgers, which we bore home on aching backs, followed by our gallant
+little team of draggled and dirty terriers. On another occasion, it took
+my brother and myself, some ten labourers and keepers, and nine
+terriers, from 10 till 5.30 to take an old 30-lb. dog badger, in an
+earth which had only one hole, and where it was a case of following
+straight into the hill. It is wonderful what can be done by twelve men
+with pick, spade, and shovel in seven hours. On this occasion we dug a
+trench ten feet long into the hill, and then the depth of bearing
+necessitated our making a drift, or tunnel, which we drove in thirty
+feet. The heat and want of air inside made the work difficult. Candles
+would not burn after we had gone about twenty feet, and the tunnel was
+so low that we had to work on our knees and then on our stomachs. There
+was a considerable danger from the roof falling in, but the fight waged
+so fiercely that we thought of little but what was ahead of us. When at
+last we got within distance of the badger, he was in rocky ground, we
+could mine no further, and being on a shelf round a corner no terrier
+could draw him. As I was the smallest of the party, it fell to me to try
+and reach him, and I crawled up as far as I could, holding a little
+bull-terrier on whom I could rely for protection for my face, and a pair
+of short badger tongs. I had indeed a bad quarter of an hour!
+
+It was stifling, cramped, and pitch dark. I kept the terrier in front of
+my head and gallantly he behaved, though every now and then the badger's
+charge, or a fierce encounter, nearly smothered me with dust and soil,
+against which I could not protect myself, as I was powerless to retreat,
+there being only room to lie flat on the ground. The man behind me was
+in the same position, tight hold of my ankles, and the man again behind
+him, and the rest of the force made a human chain, which on a signal
+from me was to be drawn out to daylight. Many attempts I made when the
+badger charged to get him with the tongs, but I had so little room to
+work my hands in that I missed him, and heard and felt the click and
+snack of his teeth on the iron. At last I felt I had hold of something,
+and I slipped the guard on the tongs, making the hold sure. I cried
+"Haul away," holding the terrier with one hand between me and the
+badger, and the tongs in the other. I found that he came with wonderful
+ease. It was not till we got to the light that I saw I had the huge
+bouncing brute by one claw, "Nip" diverting his attention from my head
+and hands. The labourers set up a shout, "He's got him by the clee," and
+a minute later we had the satisfaction of bagging him. But we were out
+only just in time. I had gone back with the terriers to see if there
+was nothing more in, and hardly had got outside again, when there was a
+fall from the roof that would, if it had taken place earlier, have
+buried some of us alive. As it was I looked round to see if we were all
+there. The men were, but one little terrier, "Pepper," a real treasure
+belonging to a neighbour of mine in Cleveland, Mr. J. P. Petch, was
+missing. We went in and found him buried, but got him out alive and
+little the worse. This was the biggest badger my brother and I ever got.
+
+But these operations are quite surpassed by those M. le Masson related
+in the following authentic story.
+
+"An extraordinary _chasse_ that lasted without interruption three days
+and three nights, took place lately in the neighbourhood of St. Omer, on
+some land in the picturesque commune of Wisques, in a wood attached to
+the chateau of Madame la douairiere Cauvet de Blanchonval.
+
+"One morning two young sportsmen of St. Omer, MM. Theobald Cauvet and
+Charles d'Hallewyn, were told by the _garde forestier_ that on his beat
+he knew of several badgers near the place they call l'Ermitage.
+
+"The little dogs being put on the scent soon found the earths, where
+they entered, and advanced with so much courage that they never stopped
+till they had reached the bottom of the earth, where they cornered the
+badgers, which held their ground in an attitude of the most threatening
+defence.
+
+"The assailants, thus powerless, made themselves heard by barking and
+baying incessantly, and with heroic pluck, the little fellows refused to
+retreat in spite of the repeated calls of their masters.
+
+"Their perseverance being carried to this length, our young gentlemen
+formed a resolution worthy of their taste for great undertakings and
+adventures. Labourers were called from the field and commissioned at
+once to set to work to reach the badgers.
+
+"The attempt was more than bold. The mouths of the set, three in number,
+were at the foot of a hill, and embraced between them a sort of
+triangular piece of land at the apex of which the passages all united
+and formed a single underground gallery. The dogs having each entered by
+a separate hole made this clear.
+
+"A shaft was sunk in order to start a tunnel at the opening of the
+lowest hole, but a depth of 7 to 8 metres (23 to 26 feet) had to be sunk
+before the passage was reached; thence they followed the direction taken
+by the dogs, and enlarged the tunnel to reach them, making an
+underground roadway 5 feet high (11/2 metres) and nearly 6 feet wide
+(13/4 metres).
+
+"Whilst the workmen were mining, the badgers on their part were also
+working ceaselessly, and kept blocking the road with the earth they
+threw back in front of the men who were pursuing them, whilst the latter
+worked in shifts (relieving parties). For three days and three nights
+these indomitable animals worked on, retreating all the time, during
+which they bored their way 49 feet whilst buried in this extension of
+their principal earth without air or food.
+
+"At one time during this war _a outrance_ it was thought they had
+escaped by some means or other, but the game terriers, which had hardly
+left them since the beginning of the struggle, soon reassured the
+workers by their redoubled cries. The undertaking was pushed on with
+greater determination than ever, and when the tunnel had reached a
+length of more than 30 metres (100 feet) they came on three badgers,
+which were quickly popped into a sack by the keeper. One of them,
+however, in his struggles succeeded in escaping from the sack, and even
+tore the clothes of the man who was carrying him. MM. Cauvet and
+d'Hallewyn showed a persistent perseverance during the whole of this
+struggle. By day and by night each in turn directed the operations of a
+siege at which more than one other lover of the pleasures of the chase
+assisted."
+
+I have given one or two out of many examples I could relate of the
+arduous nature of badger-hunting. Discipline among the workmen is as
+necessary as determination in every attempt to dig out badgers. Nothing
+imperils success so much as divided or disputed authority, and whilst
+every attention should be given to the opinions expressed in the
+councils of war during the progress of the siege, there must be no
+hesitation in carrying out the plan of campaign when once decided on, or
+the day may be wasted in earthworks, in making trenches, and attempts to
+cut off subterranean ways which have been begun only to be abandoned.
+The terriers are the most important requisite; they must be good, the
+right size, hardy, enduring, and reliable. No matter how game a dog is,
+if he cannot follow the badger he is useless. He must above all be
+full-mouthed, sharp-tongued, and ready to keep his voice going for hours
+together. He must be absolutely true, or he may make a fool of you, and
+lie fast in the earth baying an imaginary foe, or barking and scratching
+to get up a small rabbit-hole. Beware of a terrier that will think of
+such vermin when employed to fly at much higher game. They are worse
+indeed than useless, and often have I been driven nearly wild by being
+persuaded to allow some man proud of his terrier to let him go.
+
+Nothing can be more exasperating than when, after several hours of heavy
+labour and straining effort, whilst the proud owner stands smiling by
+and boasting the merits of his nailing dog, you at length reach the
+scene of all the disturbance to see a dirty little brute scratching his
+feet to tatters, frothing at the mouth, and wow-wowing to get up a
+three-inch rabbit-hole.
+
+An authority in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ recommends collars of bells
+being attached to the terriers to make the badger bolt, and states that
+broad collars of badger-skin save their necks. The former I do not
+believe to be efficacious, as fire, smoke, and crackers will not make a
+badger bolt while any one is about, and if it were efficacious it would
+be very easy to lose a bolting badger. A collar on a terrier is more
+likely to hang a dog on a root end than to save him from a bite. A
+terrier ninety-nine times out of a hundred is bitten through the muzzle,
+under the jaws, and about the skull and ears, and when inexperienced,
+about the fore-legs and shoulders. I never saw a terrier badly bitten in
+the neck, though I have seen a terrier's side torn, and one that turned
+tail punished severely in the rear. Whilst the terrier for badger should
+be game to the death, it is all-important that he should mingle
+discretion with his valour, and not drive his superior foe to
+desperation, but content himself with keeping him at bay, only using his
+teeth at a pinch and in extreme cases. Tell me, reader, how many
+terriers you know who can or will go to ground, stay there, tell the
+truth always, pass through every place a badger can, keep his head under
+the most exasperating circumstances, and come up smiling and eager after
+every round, no matter how much punished?
+
+What thousands of little curs there are called terriers, and
+fox-terriers that will no more go down a fox-earth than go up a chimney!
+How many thousands of the best of these, however finely shaped for the
+show-bench, that have no more idea of their profession and the duties
+for which nature made them, and from which they derive their name, than
+the man in the moon, and whose masters are satisfied if they can kill a
+few rats, and think them wonderfully game if they will tackle a cat!
+
+From my boyhood I have had terriers, but I never thought one worth
+keeping that could not, or would not, go to ground and show himself or
+herself worthy of their honourable name. Appearance is nothing if the
+other qualities are not present. I have had a little wire-haired terrier
+bitch (with neat, golden-tanned marked head), pretty and gentle, and
+winning in all her ways, a companion that slept on my bed each night,
+and looked the picture of innocence lying by the hearth or even on a
+lady's lap; but within that bosom beat a courageous little heart, in her
+head throbbed a brain full of sagacious intelligence, and in that soft
+brown eye lurked hidden fire. She could give deep music long sustained,
+and she never winced before the enemy. I called her "Worry," a name that
+seemed most _mal a propos_ to her casual acquaintance. For twelve long
+years she was at my side in all the ups and downs of life, leading the
+drag when I was at Cambridge, following foxhounds and bolting foxes
+when I was hunting, and my constant and daily companion, accompanying me
+into every county when I made an expedition against the badger. I was
+once amused by the remarks made about Worry by an old shoemaker who
+sometimes accompanied us with a good terrier when we were ratting. "Si'
+the (see thee), lads, Worry's t' yan (the one) fer (for) pickin' t' wick
+(the life) out on 'em," as she threw five or six big rats over her
+shoulder in half as many seconds. She died a terrible death, but game
+and uncomplaining to the last. She had a knack of squeezing herself
+through almost any kennel bars, and I had had to put her into a kennel
+for a time, and had the bars made narrower and covered with mesh wire
+netting. An hour after I had put her in I went to see her, and I was
+horror-struck to find that she was half through the bars nipped as in a
+vice, the wire torn with her teeth, and herself covered with blood and
+wounds, with one eye hanging out, blood flowing from her mouth, still
+fighting her way on--without a sound except her panting breath. She was
+delighted to see me, and with some trouble I liberated her, cut off her
+eye, staunched her wounds, and did all I could for her. She never even
+winced as I cut away the eye, and as she lay in her bed looked at me
+affectionately with her one eye and wagged her tail. The following day,
+though she did not even whine, I saw she was in terrible pain; and as
+she was at this time badly ruptured, and very lame owing to a carriage
+accident some years before which resulted in a broken thigh and a double
+fracture above the hock, I had her shot, and buried in a quiet corner of
+the orchard, with the inscription on her headstone "_Sit tibi terra
+levis_."
+
+The terriers I have found the best and surest are amongst the Yorkshire
+breed of hard, wire-haired fox-terriers, short in the leg and strong
+headed. All my own have been descended from a white, wire-haired terrier
+called Fuss, the best bitch I ever had, and a prize-winner. I bought her
+in 1870 or 1871 from a dealer called Wooton. She was bred by a man
+called Jack Ridd. Worry was out of her. My brother got a dog, Roger, a
+dead game one, at the same time from the same man, and nearly all the
+terriers I have had since are descended from these two, with out-crosses
+from local strains, including the Rev. Jack Russell's blood. I have seen
+smooth-coated terriers do equally well, but not often. The former is a
+harder and more enduring breed, though more difficult to keep clean in
+the coat, and taking time to get dry after wet in cold weather. The
+endurance of the wire-haired is remarkable. I have now a terrier, bred
+through many lines of my old favourites, which is twelve years old. His
+jolly face is scored with the marks of a thousand fights with fox and
+badger, and though lame in his shoulders, his eyes dim with age, and
+crippled with rheumatism, showing toothless gums when he smiles his
+welcome, he has twice this summer found alone the badger earths, and
+returned at evening, each time with his score of marks increased, and on
+the last occasion he left one of his ears behind him![4] A terrier that
+will go off to a badger earth on his own account, especially if a young
+one, will probably end his days and find his grave there. I have known
+several do so. Poor old Twig! Always happy, he seldom now wanders
+further than the stable-yard, and spends his declining days playing with
+the foxhound pup or sleeping in the sun, when in his dreams he fights
+his battles over again, and thrice he slays the slain. When we were
+young together he followed me every hunting morning to the meet, where
+he at once incorporated himself with the pack, greeting his friends in
+turn with a grin, a twist of his body, and a wag of his stump; and when
+the daylight faded, and the horn sounded for home, I had always to carry
+him off on my saddle, so reluctant was he, after the longest day, to
+leave his comrades of the chase. This became so troublesome that at last
+I yielded to the pressure of the huntsman, Will Nicholl, who then hunted
+the Cleveland hounds, to permit him to join the kennel establishment.
+For three seasons he scarcely missed a day, and when a fox was run to
+ground, no matter after how long or fast a run, the question, "Where is
+Twig?" was never asked twice. Always there when wanted, always
+dependable and perfect at his work, he shifted many a sulky fox that
+went to ground. Then Will Nicholl went to the Hurworth under Sir
+Reginald Graham, and took Twig with him. He did two seasons in the
+Hurworth country, from thence going to the Burton with Nicholl again.
+After a season there I had a letter saying that Nicholl feared that the
+old dog would not follow hounds another season, and he sent him back
+with me. I summered him well; he did the next season with the Cleveland,
+and came out the following season when hounds were handy or when
+occasion required, making eight seasons with foxhounds, besides being
+hunted at badger in the summer months. He had learnt not to be hard on a
+fox, but I thought I detected him in an act of violence something more
+than a year ago. We had run to ground in a drain, and Twig, who had
+heard hounds, had come across country as fast as his old legs would
+carry him, and was in before I could say "Knife." No sooner was he in
+than the fox was out, with Twig at his brush. This was not at all what
+we wanted, as the whole pack was within fifteen yards. Twig collared the
+fox as he bolted, and as the hounds were making a dash at him. I was
+angry with Twig, lifted the fox and Twig, who I thought was holding the
+fox, above my head to save reynard from the hounds. Here I had to hold
+him for five minutes, but when I tried to choke the old dog off, I
+discovered that the fox was holding Twig through the upper jaw, and the
+dog was hanging with his whole weight suspended on the fox's teeth.
+Having made the fox leave go Twig fell to the ground, and when all was
+clear I put the fox down, when we had a sharp ten minutes to ground
+again. I was there only just in time to prevent Twig from going in to
+take his revenge--the fox this time being left in peace. It is as well
+to have with you one bull-terrier, or a fox-terrier with a bit of bull
+about him. In cases of emergency, and when close up, such a dog comes in
+useful, but they are tiresome brutes as a rule to do with; they get so
+excited that they do not care what they go at, it may be the dogs or
+yourself, or I have seen them set to worry a big stone. They often go to
+ground well, but have several faults. They _will_ tackle the badger, get
+punished severely, and create all sorts of difficulties, and are
+generally nearly mute except when fighting.
+
+    [4] Dead since this was written.
+
+I had a rare life of it on one expedition with a little bull-terrier
+called Nip that I bought from a Cornishman, after a long dig in which
+Nip had distinguished himself. He was a dirty white, ugly, undershot,
+crop-eared little brute, with a tail like a shaving-brush. Shy and
+nervous, he had a fiendish amount of pugnacity and pluck. When not
+otherwise employed, he wore his teeth to the gums in vain endeavours to
+get into the interior of large stones. In a railway-carriage, so
+delighted was he at all times to get to ground, that he would get under
+the seat, and refuse to be removed if he had not on a collar and chain,
+except with the badger-tongs. He had to be muzzled and chained when with
+other dogs, and even then would make an utter fool of himself in his
+attempts to fight on every occasion. He would, when he had lost a
+badger, sulk and refuse to come out, and as it was impossible to put in
+any other dog while he was there, he had to be dug to and drawn like a
+brock. Whilst at the end of a day, when every other animal had had more
+than enough, and was glad to get food and rest, he was ready to hold me
+by the leg, and it would take the tongs and a couple of men to get his
+collar on.
+
+I have always had a great admiration for the short-coated, hard, Scotch
+terrier, and believe that they are admirably adapted for this chase, but
+I have had no experience of them. They seem cut out for it, being hardy,
+the right size, sharp-tongued, and amongst the most intelligent of the
+canine race. I knew of one who went to Craig Cluny in the edge of the
+Ballochbuie forest, and spent some hours in a vain attempt to dislodge a
+badger. He returned three miles to the inn at Braemar and found another
+terrier like himself; they trotted back together, and by their united
+efforts drew and killed an old badger! There is a spot near this place
+in the forest called Stra-na-brach--or the badger's crag--but the badger
+knows the place no more. The keeper has done his work with the trap
+throughout Aberdeenshire.
+
+Dandie Dinmont no doubt bred his dogs from these terriers, but I have no
+belief that the present race is fitted for badger-hunting. Those one
+sees on a show bench are too large to get to ground quickly and easily,
+and I doubt if there is one of the race, as at present known, that has
+ever exchanged civilities with the badger in his natural earth. Dandie
+Dinmont bred his terriers for badgers, but I am sure his never were the
+size they are now; and although Sir Walter Scott has surrounded Dandie
+with a halo of interest, and made him immortal by his eulogies, his
+fiendish cruelties have always made me hate his name, and prejudiced me
+against a breed that was developed under a hideous system. It makes my
+blood boil to read of his terriers trained to face the badger by taking
+alive young and old badgers, and sawing off the under jaws, and
+employing other indescribably cruel methods.
+
+The dachshund and the small basset, when properly selected, are
+splendidly adapted for badger-hunting. In Germany the former, and in
+France the latter, are generally bred for this purpose. Full-voiced and
+throwing a tongue like a hound, deep-chested, short-legged, and
+strong-bodied, they are perhaps the best one can have, but I do not
+think that they possess the endurance and quickness of an English
+terrier.
+
+There was a breed of wire-haired black-and-tan English terriers, but I
+imagine them to be nearly, if not altogether, extinct, that from all
+accounts must have been really good terriers in the true meaning of the
+term.
+
+In working dogs, be careful only to put in one at a time: you thus
+economize your forces, and avoid the risk of their fighting in the
+earth. More than this, if you let two dogs or a dog and a bitch in
+together, you subject them to danger and the probability of severe
+punishment. The dog in front is charged by the badger, the dog behind
+cares for nothing but that he may get to close quarters, and it is a
+case of those behind cry forward and those in front cry back. In such a
+position your terrier may have his legs and head broken, and be killed
+outright. Again, a good terrier works better and more steadily than with
+a companion, as the competition leads to jealousy. Put in your dog at
+the lowest or bottom hole of the set, driving the badger up-hill (or "to
+hill," as it is technically called) if you can. It is a much easier task
+to get a badger out in this manner, as the further up-hill the fewer are
+the passages, and generally speaking the nearer they lie to the surface.
+Furthermore, take care that you have a collar and chain for each dog,
+and that every terrier not on duty is securely fastened at a distance
+from the earth, and out of reach of any other dog.
+
+The following are the requisite implements for badger digging; they
+should be good and handy tools:--
+
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
+
+1. and 2. Spades. These should be handy, and worn to that condition
+when the edge is sharp, and the tool works easily, without having lost
+its strength. They should vary but little from the ordinary garden or
+rabbiting spade, except that where there is a depth of clay, and when in
+a deep trench, it may be easier or a relief to use a drainer's long
+narrow one.
+
+3. A crowbar.
+
+4. A scraper, or coal-rake.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
+
+5 and 6. Shovels, for clearing out the loose earth, including a
+short-handled one, or scoop, for opening the holes to let in air to the
+dogs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
+
+7. An earth-piercer, in order to locate the fight.
+
+8. Tongs. The handles should be of wood, as steel and iron "give" under
+the pressure of a man's strength at one end and the badger at the other.
+With wooden handles and steel fittings there will still be spring enough
+to work the guard, which is put on to secure the hold on the animal.
+
+9. Adze, or hatchet, for cutting roots of trees.
+
+10 and 11. Picks, single or double.
+
+Do not forget when starting on a badger-hunt to take plenty of
+refreshment with you, and remember that it is a dry job digging
+ceaselessly on a summer's day. Draught cider, light beer, and cold tea
+are the best liquors to work on for a long stretch. Do not leave the
+sacks behind you, nor cord to secure them with. And finally, reader, if
+you are a true sportsman, whilst sparing neither necessary pain to
+yourself nor dog during the progress of the siege, do not subject your
+terriers to unnecessary exposure and punishment; and when the day's work
+is done, however weary and however hungry you may be, do not attend to
+your own wants till you have seen each member of your gallant little
+pack well brushed and oiled (eyes and ears and wounds, if any, cleaned),
+fed, and put into a kennel with plenty of clean bedding. And do not
+forget to make a brave foe as comfortable as you can. If you keep a
+badger in confinement as a pet, he should have access to plenty of fresh
+cold water, and be fed on young rabbits and bread till accustomed to
+confinement, after which he will take gradually to and remain healthy on
+almost any scraps, meat, and vegetables from the house that you give
+him. He requires a dry dark kennel and yard, which should be kept
+scrupulously clean, when he will never be offensive. Some badgers take
+kindly at once to these new circumstances, others sulk and occasionally
+waste and die unless great care is taken. If the badger's evacuations
+show a tendency to purging, feed on bread chiefly and rabbit, or if
+fastidious in his appetite, give raw eggs and bread.
+
+If by this little book I have done anything towards interesting those
+who care about the perpetuation of a wild and interesting animal that
+is fast disappearing from our hillsides and valleys, and shown that
+healthy exercise and pleasure can be obtained in protecting him from
+extinction and by fairly entering the lists against him, I shall have
+done something towards delaying that sad day when the last badgers, with
+the lessons of courage and endurance that they can teach, have vanished
+for ever.
+
+
+THE END
+
+_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in the original
+publication, including on Page 61 where "vne" and "vn" have been
+retained as published--"C'est vne chose" and "car si on passe vn".
+The following change was made:
+
+    Page 48
+    entred a good depth _changed to_
+    entered a good depth
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Badger, by Alfred E. Pease
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