148 Badgers. [Sess. 
as now kept there. I am certain that one and all will then 
agree with me that “stinkin’ brock” is a misnomer. Of — 
course any animal, if confined in a box with a total disregard 
to sanitary laws, will have an unpleasant odour. I am not 
overlooking the fact that, as a means of defence, the badger has 
a glandular apparatus from which an offensive matter exudes _ 
when the animal is being “ badgered.” I hold, however, that — 
a badger has no right to be “badgered,” and if let alone © 
“ stinkin’ brock” is not applicable. 
The period of gestation in the badger has been a subject of © 
much discussion in many journals, and notably in the ‘ Field’ — 
newspaper—the exact time never having been satisfactorily — 
demonstrated. Several interesting circumstances bearing 
upon this subject have appeared at intervals in the columns — 
of the ‘Field.’ In the issue of that popular newspaper for 
5th April 1861 Mr H. Shaw of Shrewsbury states that a — 
badger which had been kept in confinement at Haughton ~ 
Hall, Salop, from April 3, 1860, brought forth two young — 
on 12th March 1861, more than eleven months after she 
commenced her solitary life. Again, under date 25th June 
1864, Mr F. Heycock of Bedford says that he caught a 
badger, and kept her for thirteen months, when she brought 
forth a young one. We further learn from the ‘Field’ of 
17th September 1864, on the authority of Mr John Seaman, 
superintendent of the Hull Zoological Gardens, that a badger 
brought forth young after being shut up in a cage there for 
fifteen months. Again, on 22nd March 1868, we learn 
from the same source that a ratcatcher named Butler, living 
near Oxford, had kept a female badger in his possession — 
from November 1866, and had her locked up in an iron 
cage. On the first of March 1868, after she had thus 
been in confinement for fifteen months, she gave birth to 
four young. 
I have thus far quoted from the ‘ Field’ newspaper, but am 
glad to say that I can now from personal knowledge speak 
with some degree of certainty on this point. My friend 
Mr Paterson of Rutherford possesses a number of badgers, 
already referred to: three generations have been bred in 
captivity. Finer pets I never saw. They are very tame, 
eating out of my hand, but they are very shy if anything 
SAPO AL ig OE AEP TNO RAG EO 
oon 
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