THE BADGER 



PART I 



I DO not know of the existence of any 

 monograph on the Badger, ancient or modern, 

 in English or any other language. Nor have 

 I been able to find any adequate description 

 in any work on natural history or British 

 fauna of this the largest, and by no means the 

 least interesting, of the real wild animals that 

 still exist in England and Wales. So that, 

 however unfitted I may be to write a 

 scientific treatise on the last of the bear tribe 

 that we have yet with us, I have ventured 

 to think that my own observations and 

 researches, with experiences of the chase of 

 this troglodyte, may be of interest to lovers 



