BADGER 43 



just mentioned. I refer to the policies at Edmonstone 

 House, where Badgers have taken up their abode for some 

 years past, and are known to have bred on several occasions. 

 Unfortunately, the gamekeeper seems to think they are 

 already too numerous, and has taken to killing them. In 

 May of this year (1891) I saw two of them in the taxider- 

 mist's hands. It is supposed that this colony originated with 

 a female which escaped from the stables at The Inch, where 

 Mr T. Speedy has kept several in confinement. The Badger 

 seen in a field near Greenend in June 1883, and mentioned 

 in the "Scotsman" at the time, was doubtless the same 

 animal. 



Former haunts on both branches of the Esk have been 

 placed on record. In 1808 Neill included it in his list of 

 animals inhabiting the grounds of Newhall, on the North Esk; 

 and the writer of the " New Statistical Account " of the parish 

 of Borthwick, on the southern branch, informs us that while 

 he was preparing that account (in 1839) there was a litter of 

 young Badgers in the Chirmat, a piece of wooded hill opposite 

 the windows of the manse. About Temple and Eosebery, 

 in the same neighbourhood, it existed until quite recently, 

 and the last may not even yet have been destroyed there. 

 One which was taken alive near Temple was advertised for 

 sale in the "Scotsman" of 25th April 1880; and a little 

 farther east, on the confines of Midlothian and Haddington- 

 shire, another was trapped some sixteen or seventeen years 

 ago at Blackshiels by Mr W. Wood, gamekeeper, who has 

 often related the circumstance to me. 



Almost every estate in East Lothian appears to have 

 contained Badgers at one time. Mr Saunders, gamekeeper, 

 Gosford, informs me that it is now some forty-five years since 

 the last was killed there, and that about the same time they 

 were on the adjoining properties of Gilmerton and Luffness, on 



