THE CAENIVOKA. 59 



The strong scent of the badger is secreted in a large 

 glandular pouch beneath the tail. 



For so heavily built an animal, it is singularly swift of 



foot, though it has not, as some aver, legs of unequal 



length to enable it to run uphill. When escape from the 



dogs is out of the question, its strongly articulated lower 



jaw and sharp teeth encourage it to stand 



disposition ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ good account of itself. 

 It is nevertheless extremely gentle by nature, 

 and is, when taken young, capable of great affection for 

 the hand that feeds it. A friend and myself kept one for 

 nearly a year, which preferred young rats to any other 

 food. At the end of that time it died, and I remember 

 we thought at the time that its decease was due to the 

 absence from its diet of some necessary corrective root of 

 which we unfortunately did not know the secret. The 

 badger is as a rule a silent beast, but it will occasionally 

 utter piercing cries without apparent cause. 



The distribution of the badger in these islands is some- 

 what local. As already remarked, its burrowing and 

 nocturnal habits have caused it to be regarded as rarer 

 than it really is. In the Lake district, however, it cer- 

 tainly does appear to have diminished of late 

 Present range. "^ ^ ^ t , 



years, though correspondingly extending its 



range in other directions. According to Roebuck,^ it is also 

 dwindling in Yorkshire. By no means rare in the High- 

 lands, where it hibernates, it is apparently unknown on most 

 of the islands, though introduced into Jura.^ It is com- 

 mon in parts of Ireland, where the peasantry cure its flesh. 

 It breeds in the spring, four young being born in March 

 Breedino- ^^ April as a rule, though litters are recorded 

 hiberna- in the summer. The period of gestation is 

 tion, and said to vary. Its hibernation is no more 

 appearance. ^^^^^ ^ broken sleep, for, although it stores 

 a quantity of moss and grass in its so-called winter 



1 Yorkshire Vertebrata, p. 7. 



2 Ilarvie- Brown and Buckley, Fauna of Argyll, p. 18. 



