132 CAENIVORA. 



being worth 6s. to 22s. 6d., according to demand. This 

 fur is occasionally djed dark brown. Few skins are 

 adapted for brush-making, the hair being usually too soft 

 for this purpose, except some from the Southern States of 

 America. The heads are sometimes stuffed, and used 

 for ornamenting sporrans. The best skins are exported 

 to France, Italy, and Spain. 



The smell of the skin is nut-like. 



The colour of the American Badger is dark silver in 

 the Southern States ; it is much lighter in colour and 

 larger in its northern range. 



This animal is found in the York Fort district, and in 

 many of the States of the American Kepublic ; it is not 

 found in Labrador, nor Alaska. 



It burrows with facility, the formation of its powerful 

 claws assisting it greatly. 



It is said by the Eev. J. G. Wood to feed on prairie- 

 dogs. 



The following remarks are selected from a letter on 

 the American Badger in the Field : — " Wlien taken 

 young, they are easily tamed, and make capital pets. 

 As for their food, when in a wild state they will eat any 

 carrion, preferring fresh meat, mice, beetles, gophers 

 (an animal something like an exaggerated field-mouse, 

 about the size of a rat), grasshoppers, snakes, frogs, and 

 almost anything they come across.'' 



Dr. Eichardson, in his "North American Fauna" (page 

 39), says: — "Whilst the ground is covered with snow, 

 the Badger rarely or never comes from its hole, and I 

 suppose that in that climate it passes the winter from 

 the beginning of November to April in a torpid state. 

 Indeed, as it obtains the small animals on which it feeds 

 by surprising them in their burrows, it has little chance 

 of digging them out at a time when the ground is frozen 



