THE BADGER 



Nothing can be more exasperating than 

 when, after several hours of heavy labour and 

 straining effort, whilst the proud owner stands 

 smiling by and boasting the merits of his 

 nailing dog, you at length reach the scene of 

 all the disturbance to see a dirty little brute 

 scratching his feet to tatters, frothing at the 

 mouth, and wow-wowing to get up a three- 

 inch rabbit-hole. 



An authority in the Gentleman s Magazine 

 recommends collars of bells being attached to 

 the terriers to make the badger bolt, and states 

 that broad collars of badger-skin save their 

 necks. The former I do not believe to be 

 efficacious, as fire, smoke, and crackers will 

 not make a badger bolt while any one is 

 about, and if it were efficacious it would be 

 very easy to lose a bolting badger. A collar 

 on a terrier is more likely to hang a dog on 

 a root end than to save him from a bite. A 

 terrier ninety-nine times out of a hundred is 

 bitten through the muzzle, under the jaws, and 

 about the skull and ears, and when inexperi- 

 enced, about the fore-legs and shoulders. I 

 never saw a terrier badly bitten in the neck, 



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