OTHER LITTLE ANIMALS 297 



grounds of the trapper be. Badgers run most where gophers sit 

 sunning themselves on the clay mounds, ready to bolt down to 

 their subterranean burrows on the first approach of an enemy. 

 Eternal enemies these two are, gopher and badger, though they 

 both live in ground holes, nest their lairs with grasses, run all 

 summer and sleep all winter, and alike prey on the creatures smaller 

 than themselves — mice, moles and birds. The gopher, or ground 

 squirrel, is smaller than the wood squirrel, while the badger is 

 larger than a Manx cat, with a shape that varies according to the 

 exigencies of the situation. Normally, ,he is a flattish, fawn- 

 colored beast, with a turtle-shaped body, little round head, and 

 small legs with unusually strong claws. Ride after the badger 

 across the prairie and he stretches out in long, lithe shape, resem- 

 bling a baby cougar, turning at every pace or two to snap at your 

 horse, then off again at a hulking scramble of astonishing speed. 

 Pour water down his burrow to compel him to come up or down, 

 and he swells out his body, completely filling the passage, so that 

 his head, which is downward, is in dry air, while his hind quarters 

 alone are in the water. In captivity the badger is a business-like 

 little body, with very sharp teeth, of which his keeper must beware, 

 and some of the tricks of the skunk, but inclined, on the whole, 

 to mind his affairs if you will mind yours. Once a day regularly 

 every afternoon out of his lair he emerges for the most comical 

 sorts of athletic exercises. Hour after hour he will trot diagonally 

 — because that gives him the longest run — from corner to corner 

 of his pen, rearing up on his hind legs as he reaches one corner, 

 rubbing the back of his head, then down again and across to the 

 other corner, where he repeats the performance. There can be 

 no reason for the badger doing this, unless it was his habit in the 

 wilds when he trotted about leaving dumb signs on mud banks and 

 brushwood by which others of his kind might know where to find 

 him at stated times. 



Sunset is the time when he is almost sure to be among the 

 gopher burrows. In vain the saucy jay shrieks out a warning to 



