58 MAMMALS. 



from its terrible jaws, worried it to death, was a recognised 

 diversion. This pastime is believed by some to be obso- 

 lete. Others are curious to know what becomes of the 

 large number of badgers openly caught on moonlight nights 

 by bolting with the help of trained dogs into a sack placed 

 in the entrance to its earth. The great care exercised in 

 taking it alive may well arouse suspicion as to the unhappy 

 beast's ultimate destination. 



Another modern method of taking the badger is that 

 of digging it out with the aid of small dogs sent into its 



earth, and gripping it, as soon as it appears 

 capture ^^ ^^® entrance, in a pair of blunt tongs made 



for the purpose. Here, again, the extreme 

 solicitude with which I have observed it on these occasions 

 to be transferred to a roomy sack has suggested ultimate 

 possibilities. There has been at least one badger club 

 engaged in its pursuit. 



The food of this burrowing and undoubtedly carnivorous 

 beast is exceedingly varied, and includes roots of bracken, 



nuts, fruit, more especially blackberries, small 



mammals (especially hedgehogs), and reptiles, 

 grasshoppers and other insects, eggs and honey, wasps' 

 nests being also a favourite dish. With the exception of 

 an occasional leveret, its damage in the game-preserve may 

 be generally dismissed as imaginary. Thus, Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell has with no unsatisfactory results re-established 

 it in Wigtownshire, where it had become extinct. Speedy,-^ 

 however, in his interesting book, declares it to be "the 

 most formidable and difficult of ground vermin to deal 

 with," but very sensibly advocates, instead of its wholesale 

 destruction, its being caught alive and conveyed to those 

 parts of the country where game-preserving is not the 

 paramount consideration. It is, however, too often killed 

 at sight. Only this spring (1897) a Yorkshire farmer 

 killed with a blow from his stick a fine vixen weigh- 

 ins 20 lb. 



'O 



Sport ill the Highlands, p, 320. 



