BADGER. 



BADGER. 



370 



and in fact the Badgers are much less carnivorous than any other 

 animal of the order to which they belong, except perhaps the bears. 

 The quality of the food is in all cases necessarily dependent upon the 

 nature of the dentition. The principal character of the feet in the 

 badgers consists in their having five toes both before and behind, 

 short, strong, deeply buried in the flesh, and furnished with powerful 

 compressed claws, admirably calculated for burrowing or turning up 

 the earth in search of roots. The legs are short and muscular ; the 

 body broad, flat, and compact ; the head more or less prolonged ; the 

 snout pointed ; the ears small, and the tail short. Beneath the anus 

 there is an aperture of considerable size which opens transversely, 

 and exudes from its inner surface a greasy or oleaginous matter of 

 very offensive odour. The same formation is observed in many other 

 genera of carnivorous mammals, though the qualities of the substance 

 secreted differ according to the species. In the Civets and Genets, for 

 instance, its smell is so pleasing as to entitle it to the rank of a 

 perfume ; whilst in the Moufettes, on the contrary, its odour is so 

 extremely fetid as to have acquired for them above all other animals 

 the generic name of Mephites, or Stinkards. 



The Badgers sleep all day at the bottom of their burrows, and move 

 about during the night in search of food. They are frequently accused 

 of destroying rabbits, game, and even young lambs ; but roots and 

 fallen fruits appear to constitute the chief part of their food, and they 

 certainly exhibit a more marked taste for vegetable than for animal 

 food, at least when kept hi confinement. With the powerful claws of 

 their fore feet they construct a deep and commodious burrow, 

 generally in a sandy or light gravelly soil ; this has but a single 

 entrance from without, but it afterwards divides into different 

 chambers, and terminates in a round apartment at the bottom, which 

 is well lined with dry grass and hay. The habits of the badgers are 

 extremely solitary ; they are never found in company even with the 

 females of their own species, and as they sleep all day rolled up in 

 their bed of warm hay at the bottom of their holes, they are always 

 fat and in good condition : their flesh is relished in many places aa an 

 article of food. They carefully remove everything of an offensive 

 nature from their earths, never deposit their excrements in the vici- 

 nity of their habitations, and are even said to abandon them if acci- 

 dentally or intentionally polluted by any other creature. In its 

 geographical distribution the genus extends throughout the whole of 

 Europe, Northern and Central Asia, and North America : we have no 

 accounts of its extending into Africa or South America, in the former 

 of which continents it appears to be represented by the Rattel (6Wo 

 //a, Desmarest), and in the latter by various species of Moufettes 

 (Mephitii). Australia possesses no species of mammal belonging to 

 the Plantigrade Family, at least none has been hitherto discovered in 

 that country ; and in the Eastern Peninsula and Isles of India the 

 place of the Badger is supplied by the Telagon (Mijdaus melicept, 

 F. Cuvier). 



The number of species which zoologists admit into the genus Mde 

 is very limited indeed. All writers, without exception, have followed 

 F. Cuvier"s example in excluding the Indian Badger, for the pur- 

 pose of making it the type of a new genus, though for what reason it 

 would be difficult to say, since the dental system of this animal has 

 never been properly described, and hi all its other characters it differs 

 in no respect from the Common Badger. Many again are disposed 

 to consider the American Badger as only a simple variety of the 

 European : so that according to these authors the genus includes 

 only a single species. The observations of Sir John Richardson how- 

 ever have placed the distinctness of the American animal beyond 

 a doubt ; and so long as we have no definite observations to con- 

 tradict the approximation, we shall continue to associate the Indian 

 K|>vcies with the genus to which its known characters so nearly assi- 

 milate it. 



1. M. i-ulgarti( Desmarest), the Common Badger, is about the size of 

 a middling dog, but stands much lower on the legs, and has a broader 

 and natter body. The head is long and pointed, the ears almost con- 

 cealed in the hair of the head, and the tail so short that it scarcely 

 reaches to the middle of the hind legs ; the hide is amazingly thick 

 and tough ; the hair uniformly long and coarse over the whole body, 

 and trailing along the ground on each side as the animal walks. The 

 Badger and its congeners offer a strange intermixture of colours, which 

 is seen in no other mammal, except those of the genera Gulo and 

 MephUit, which, as ,-ilready remarked, approximate so nearly to it in 

 many other respects : in general the darker shades are found to pre- 

 dominate upon the back and upper parts of the body, and the lighter 

 below ; but in the animals above-mentioned this general rule is 

 reversed, and it is the light shades which occupy the back and 

 shoulders, whilst the dark ones are spread over the breast and abdo- 

 men. The head of the Badger for instance is white, except the 

 region beneath the chin, which is black, and two bands of the same 

 colour, which rise on each side a little behind the corners of the 

 mouth, and after passing backwards and enveloping the eye and ear 

 terminate at the junction of the head and neck. The hairs of the 

 ii|>|nr part of the body, considered separately, are of three different 

 colours, yellowish-white at the bottom, black in the middle, and ashy- 

 gray at the point ; the last colour alone however appears externally, 

 and gives the uniform sandy-gray shade which covers all the upper 

 ports of the body : the tail is furnished with long coarse hair of the 



NAT. HIST. DIV. VOL. I. 



same colour and quality, and the throat, breast, belly, and limbs are 

 covered with shorter hair of a uniform deep black. 



Though the Badger is found throughout all the northern parts of 

 Europe and Asia, it is rather a scarce animal everywhere. Its food is 

 chiefly roots, fruits, insects, and frogs, but it likewise destroys the 

 eggs and young of partridges and other birds which build on the 

 ground, and attacks the nests of the wild bees, which it robs with 

 impunity, as the length of its hair and the thickness of its hide render 

 it insensible to the sting of the bee. It chooses the most solitary 

 woods for its residence, is quiet and inoffensive in its manners, but 

 when attacked defends itself with a courage and resolution which few 

 dogs of double its own size and weight can overcome. It bites 

 angrily, and holds on with great tenacity, which it is enabled to do 

 the more easily from the peculiar construction of the articulation or 

 hinge that connects its under jaw with the skull, and which consists 

 of a transverse condyle completely locked into a bony cavity of the 

 cranium. The Badger is not mentioned by Aristotle, and possibly 

 may not be found in Greece, as the ancient language of that country 

 has not even a name for it, and as it is less common in the southern 

 than in the northern parts of Europe. Pliny however notices it under 

 the name of Melis (viii. 38), and various other Roman authors have 

 spoken of it. More recent writers also use Taxus, perhaps derived, 

 like other Roman names of northern animals, from the German 

 language, in which the Badger is called Zachs or Itachs ; in Dutch 

 Das. The female brings forth her young in the early part of spring, 

 to the number of three, four, or five ; she continues to suckle them 

 carefully for the first five or six weeks, and afterwards accustoms 

 them gradually to shift for themselves. When taken young they are 

 easily tamed, and become as familiar and playful as puppies ; they 

 soon learn to distinguish their master, and show their attachment by 

 following or fawning upon those who feed them ; the old however are 

 always indocile, and continue solitary and distrustful under the most 

 gentle treatment. 



The Badger is hunted in some parts of the country during the 

 bright moonlight nights, when he goes abroad in search of food. The 

 hide, when properly dressed, makes the best pistol furniture; the 

 hair is valuable for making brushes to soften the shades in painting; 

 and the hind-quarters, when salted and smoked, make excellent hams. 

 This kind of food indeed is not so universally esteemed in our own 

 country as in China, where Bell informs us that he saw dozens of 

 Badgers at a time hanging in the meat-markets of Pekin j but there 

 is no reason why it should be inferior to the flesh of the bear, which 

 is universally esteemed by all who have tasted it. 



2. M. Labradorica (Sabine), the American Badger, measures, when 

 full grown, about two feet and a half from the muzzle to the root of the 

 tail, which is six inches more. Its snout is less attenuated than that 

 of the European species, though its head is equally long ; its ears are 

 short and round, the claws of its fore feet much longer in proportion 

 than those of the common species, its tail comparatively shorter, its 

 fur of a quality altogether different, its colours also very different, 

 and its appetites more decidedly carnivorous ; the head and extremi- 

 ties alone are covered with short coarse hair ; all the other parts of 

 the body are furnished with remarkably soft, fine, silky fur, upwards 

 of four inches in length, and differing only in being rather more 

 sparingly supplied on the under than on the upper parts. 



The American Badger is called Brairo and Siffleu" by the Canadians, 

 Mistonusk and Awawteekseoo, or the Digging Animal, by the Crees, and 

 Chocartoosh by the Pawnee Indians. Its form and habits have been 

 well described by Sir John Richardson in his admirable 'Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana.' 



" The Mdet Labradorica," says Sir John, " frequents the sandy plains 

 or prairies which skirt the Rocky Mountains as far north as the banks 

 of the Peace River, and sources of the River of the Mountains, in lat. 

 58. It abounds on the plains watered by the Missouri, but its exact 

 southern range has not, as far as I know, been defined by any traveller. 

 The sandy prairies in the neighbourhood of Carltou House, on the 

 banks of the Saskatchewan, and also on the Red River that flows into 

 Lake Winipeg, are perforated by innumerable badger-holes, which are 

 a great annoyance to horsemen, particularly when the ground is covered 

 with snow. These holes are partly dug by the badgers for habitations, 

 but the greater number of them are merely enlargements of the bui 

 rows of the Acetomys Hoodii and Richardsonii, which the badgers dig 

 up and prey upon. 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 

 till April, in a torpid state. Indeed, as it obtains the small animals 

 upon 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 into 

 a solid rock. Like the bears, the badgers do not lose much flesh 

 during their long hybernation, for on coming abroad in the spring 

 they are observed to be very fat. As they pair however at that 

 season they soon become lean. The badger is a slow and timid 

 animal, taking to the first earth it meets with when pursued ; and 

 as it makes its way through the sandy soil with the rapidity of a 

 mole, it soon places itself out of the reach of danger. The strength 

 of its fore feet and claws is so great, that one which had insinuated 

 only its head and shoulders into a hole resisted the utmost efforts of 

 two stout young men, who endeavoured to drag it out by the hind 



2 B 



