86 BULLETIN NO. VII. 
Sus-Fammy MELIN 2. 
THE BADGERS. 
We have already given the diagnosis of the sub-family with 
sufficient detail for our present purpose and may pass to an ac- 
count of the only species of the American genus Taxidea. 
GrENuS TAXIDEA, WATERHOUSE. 
Dentition 3.1. 3.4=84. Skull expanded behind, the inter- 
mastoid diameter nearly equaling the inter-zygomatic. Audi- 
tory bulle very much inflated, impinging behind upon the 
paroccipitals. Palatals extending half way to the ends of the 
pterygoids. Coronoid process of jaw erect, pointed. Anterior 
molar below rather small, posterior lower molar bi-tuberculate. 
Back upper molar forming a right-angled triangle, with the 
hypothenuse directed backward and outward. Limbs short, 
fossorial. Body depressed. ‘Tail short, flat. Pelage long 
flaccid covering the back like a thatch. 
Taxidea americana BAIRD. 
PuatE III. 
BADGER. 
One specimen only of the badger has been seen during the 
survey and from its comparative rarity no additional informa- 
tion has been gathered. I am therefore forced to draw wholly 
from Coues’ N. A. Mustelidze, a work so generally accessible 
as to render synonomy and exhaustive descriptive matter un- 
necessary. The species is distributed throughout the United 
States west of Wisconsin, extending farther east in British 
America. In Mexicoasub-species 7. berlandieri takes its place. 
“The badger varies greatly in color, as a fortuitous matter of 
age, season, or condition of pelage, aside from certain geogra- 
phical differences. The variation, however, is mainly in the 
relative amounts of the blackish tawny-gray and white which 
produce the general grizzle, the pattern of coloration being well 
preserved, especially as to the markings of the head. The top 
of the head is dark brown or blackish, generally increasing in 
ntensity and purity from the nape to the snout. This dark 
area is divided lengthwise by a sharp white or whitish median 
stripe, which runs from the snout, or just back of it, to the 
nape, where it is generally lost in the grizzle of that part. The 
