146 BRITISH MAMMALS 



neath a bank, or in a disused quarry, it tears out with the long 

 and powerful claws of the front feet (kicking away the earth also 

 with the hind paws) a deep burrow, which at the end probably forks 

 into a couple of holes. The burrow, or at any rate the sleeping 

 chamber, is kept scrupulously clean, and is lined with dried grass 

 and bracken fern or other herbage. Mr. Ellis, who has written 

 much on the habits of the badger, states that in the autumn the 

 old bedding is replaced by fresh, and for this purpose fern and 

 grass are torn up by the badger previously and left to dry in little 

 heaps. In such a retreat as this the badger passes a good deal of 

 the daylight, starting forth at sunset or in the twilight to seek for 

 food. Generally, as the badger leaves the mouth of its burrow 

 it kicks up against it a good deal of loose soil and vegetation to 

 screen the entrance. Badgers hibernate in the British Islands to 

 a certain extent, though not so uninterruptedly as in parts of 

 Northern Europe. Badgers and foxes sometimes dwell together 

 in close proximity and apparently on friendly terms, or at any 

 rate with friendly neutrality. The fox being a lazy animal 

 dislikes the bother of making a burrow for himself, and will 

 sometimes attempt to take possession of one which has been 

 temporarily discarded by a badger. It is said, even, that in one of 

 these burrows with twin nests at the end fox cubs have been 

 brought up on one side and badger cubs on the other. 



Badgers readily take to the water, and are good swimmers. 

 Their presence in Ireland, however, is somewhat of a problem, 

 since they would probably not be able to swim across the existing 

 strait between the Mull of Kintyre and the coast of Antrim ; 

 yet it is doubtful whether, when the badger entered England 

 from the Continent of Europe by the then existing land bridge, 

 there was still any land connection between Scotland and Ireland. 

 Nevertheless, badgers are found pretty widely all over Ireland, and 

 their fossil remains even have been discovered in caves in the south 

 of Ireland. In England they have existed since the Pleistocene 

 Epoch. At the present day they are found almost throughout 

 England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, but not on the large islands 

 off the west coast of Scotland. It is doubtful, also, whether their 



