808 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



like ; lie will lie up in the winter, and eat vegetable as well as 

 animal food. Some other creatures, that are supposed to be 

 strictly carnivorous, will eat fruit when they can get it. 



The badger, poor beast ! is getting scarce ; more's the pity, 

 from the animal collector's and the naturalist's point of view. 

 He generally manages to dispense with the observation of the 

 latter ; for, unless his ways are well known, he will escape from a 

 place that might have been supposed strong enough to hold a 

 rhinoceros. All his family have been excavators from the begin- 

 ning, on the most scientific principles. Unless you take the great- 

 est precautions, he will dig himself out and get away in quick 

 time. He is a most quiet and orderly being, and a contented one 

 too, if let alone ; for, as a rule, he is fat. 



His persecutors are many, from the keeper down to the rat- 

 catcher's lad, who boasts that he has "the best dog at any var- 

 mint as ever run on four legs." Some of our common expressions 

 require alteration, being founded on ignorance. For instance, 

 folks say, " Dirty as a badger " ; whereas a cleaner creature in its 

 home and surroundings would be hard to find. A very wide- 

 awake individual he is ; and he needs be, for the hand of both 

 man and of boy is against him, and utterly without reason. 



If the badger had but the same privileges extended to him 

 that the fox has, he would not be so rare an animal as he is now. 

 Why should he be so worried by dogs ? It is to be hoped that 

 badger-drawing has nearly had its day. This very practice, 

 brutal as it is, testifies to his determined courage and fighting 

 qualities ; you could not find a more determined antagonist than 

 he is when on his mettle. 



With regard to his food, the greater part of it consists of such 

 small deer as may fall in his way, when he wanders here and 

 there in the evening after leaving the hole where he has lain 

 dormant all the day. That long snout of his will poke and root 

 out all manner of things, from a wild bees' nest to a field-mouse. 

 He will eat young rabbits when he can get them, and old ones 

 do not come amiss to him when the chance offers. A sporting 

 character I knew once procured a fine badger for the express pur- 

 pose of having him baited by all the fancy dogs in his locality. 

 Among other creatures he kept rabbits, and his particular fancy 

 was to have the very best of the lop-eared variety that could be 

 procured. One doe he valued most highly, because, setting aside 

 her own qualities, she had a fine lot of young ones, well grown, 

 and as beautiful as herself. 



The badger had only been caught the same evening on which 

 it was brought to this individual. Not having a place ready for 

 it, he placed it for the time in an empty hutch just over the one 

 in which his favorite doe and her little ones were. Fastening the 



