BADGER 45 



examined in the flesh about a dozen from within the water- 

 shed of the Tweed, most of them having been captured in the 

 neighbourhood of Lauder, and two in Selkirkshire. On 

 one occasion, some two-and-twenty years ago, Mr Small, 

 taxidermist, Edinburgh, received six from Coldstream. In the 

 parish of Heriot they were present in the days of the " Old 

 Statistical Account" (xvi., p. 51) ; and in the north-west of 

 Peeblesshire one was killed at Halmyre dean about ten years 

 ago, as I am informed by Mr T. G. Laidlaw ; while on the 

 Dolphinton estate a full-grown female — the third got there 

 during the last two or three years — was captured on 18th 

 April 1890, as recorded by Mr Charles Cook in the " Scottish 

 Naturalist" for January 1891, page 36. 



The rough braes of many a Linlithgowshire stream, covered 

 as they then would be with natural wood and bracken, were 

 doubtless in former times also the chosen abode of the Brock ; 

 indeed this is rendered certain as regards one section of the 

 county at any rate, by the fact that the parish of Uphall was 

 formerly called " Strathbrok " (" Old Stat. Ace," vi., 543) ; 

 hence also Broxburn, the principal village in the parish. 

 The Eev. Professor Duns informs me that when he went 

 to reside at Torphichen in 1844, there were still a few in 

 that neighbourhood, and that he has a skin yet which he then 

 obtained. Lochcote was a habitat at that time, or even later, 

 as I learn from the son of a former keeper there. Mr S. 

 Martin, for many years keeper at Hopetoun, writes me 

 (October 1891) that to the best of his recollection Badgers 

 were killed there about twelve or fifteen years ago; and 

 Mr Small, taxidermist, Edinburgh, tells me that prior to 

 1875 or 1876 he frequently had Badgers to stuff from 

 Linlithgowshire. One, which I saw in Mr Small's shop, 

 was killed on 29th September 1887, at the Witch-craig, 

 by the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire fox-hounds. In the 



