154 MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 



way, but, like the Cockatrice — the dread of which has perhaps not jiltogether 

 ceased in this country — it was hatched by a serpent out of the egg of a Cock ! 

 Though adopted by very sage and learned naturalists in the plenitude of their 

 credulity, and continued by their copyists, the Basilisk of the ancients was 

 purely a poetical creation, the emblem of regal tyranny, in short ; and its 

 origin was made unnatural, and the scene of its dominion laid in the desert, 

 because to have spoken more plainly at home might not have been altogether 

 safe. It does not follow, however, that the ancient poet who imagined the 

 fable believed in the material existence of the Basilisk any more than Milton 

 did in that of his personifications of Sin and Death, or Shakspeare in those 

 ghosts which he conjured up with such matchless skill, and upon which the 

 poetic beauty and the moral grandeur of some of his best passages are made 

 so much to depend. We have deemed it advisable to notice, in this striking 

 instance of it, the prostitution of poetic or allegorical names to the subjects 

 in Natural History. — Partington's Natural Hislorij. 



The Badger This is a very quiet and inoffensive animal, more so, per- 

 haps, than any other quadruped of the same size, for it hurls neither animal 

 nor plant, at least in those species in which man takes an interest, or upon 

 which he sets a value. Its food is understood to be fruits, roots, and grass, 

 and also insects and other small animals, though not any thing larger than a 

 lizard or a frog. It is not capable of climbing, and thus it can injure nothing 

 which grows or perches upon trees, bushes, or tall stems ; and as it usually 

 keeps its burrow during the day, the live part of its food must consist only of 

 those creiitures which come out to feed during the night, many of the moUus- 

 ca, and other small animals having that habit. It is thus very probable that 

 Badgers are of service as scavengers in those places which lie near their bur- 

 rows, by destroying animals which, but for them, would, in the natural state 

 of those rude places, become noxious from their numbers, and destructive 

 from their havoc upon vegetation. In some parts of the country, the Badg- 

 ers have been most unfairly accused of invading the mansions of the dead for 

 the purpose of gratifying their appetite. Their facility in burrowing and 

 their offensive odour may both contribute to strengthen such a prejudice on 

 the part of the ignorant. But it is nevertheless totally without foundation. 

 Badgers burrow not for the purpose of eating, but that they may have warm 

 and safe berths, which they render comfortable by bedding them with soft 

 grass ; and they would not eat the contents of graves, even if offered to them 

 without any trouble on their part. The writer of this article remembers, 

 when a boy, being present at the extirpation of a small colony of Badgers, 

 which stood accused, by current report, of this species of profanation. The 

 surface of an upland, but rather rich district, was finely diversified by swell- 

 ing knolls along the north bank of a winding rivulet ; and as the rivulet had, 

 according to the custom of rivulets, " taken from the height and given to the 

 hollow," there were steep and tangled banks at different places, open to the 

 south-west, which was the descent side of the country ; was snug and warm, 

 and as well adapted for both birds and Badgers, as thickets of fragrant Broom 

 upon sloping banks could be. The name of the Badgers operated in some 

 sort as a protection to the birds, as the boys seemed afraid to venture far into 

 the brake in their nesting excursions, lest they should slip a leg into a Badg- 

 er's hole, and be drawn out minus a toe or even a foot. So L.innets, and 

 Blackcaps, and Whitethroats reared their broods, and simg '' round" in higli 



