When the Badger is employed in digging a burrow, it makes use of its nose in order 
to push aside the earth, which is then scraped away by the fore-paws and flung as far back 
as possible. In a very short time, the accumulation of earth becomes so considerable that 
it impedes the animal’s movements, and if permitted to remain would soon choke up the 
tunnel which the miner is so industriously excavating. The hinder paws are now brought 
into play, and the earth is flung farther back by their action. As the excavation proceeds, 
the accumulated earth becomes so inconvenient that the Badger is forced to remove it 
entirely out of the burrow, by retrograding from its position and pushing the loose earth 
away in its progress. Having thus cleared the tunnel from the impediment, the Badger 
proceeds to fling the earth as far away as possible, and until it has done so will not 
resume its labours. 
In this burrow the female Badger makes her nest and rears her young, which are 
generally three or four in number. The nest is made of well-dried grass, and stored with 
provisions in the shape of grass-balls, which are firmly rolled together, and laid up in a 
kind of supplementary chamber that acts the part of a larder. There are also several 
ingeniously contrived sinks, wherein are deposited the remnants of the food and other 
offensive substances. 
The food of the Badger is of a mixed character, being partially vegetable and partly 
animal. Snails and worms are greedily devoured by this creature, and the wild bees, 
wasps, and other fossorial hymenoptera find a most destructive foe in the Badger, which 
scrapes away the protecting earth and devours honey, cells, and grubs together, without 
being deterred from its meal by the stings of the angry bees. The skin of the Badger is so 
tough, and lies so loosely on the body, that even if a bee or a wasp could find a bare spot 
wherein to plant its sting, the Badger would in all probability care little for the wound ; 
and as the covering of hair is so dense that no bee-sting can force its way through the 
furry mantle, the Badger is able to feast at its ease, undisturbed by the attacks of its 
winged antagonists. 
‘As is the case with the generality of weasels, the Badger is furnished with an apparatus 
which secretes a substance of an exceedingly offensive odour, to which circumstance is 
” 
probably owing much of the popular prejudice against the “stinking brock 
