42 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX. 



extending the earth every year. " They draw out astonishing 

 mounds of soil from the holes, and their underground town- 

 ship must be very roomy. They are tenants in common with 

 the foxes. Indeed it is an old fox-earth. Rabbits also 

 occupy a portion." Mr. Buxton adds that, although they 

 generally live in harmony, there is evidence that the Badgers 

 "are occasionally guilty of the heinous crime of vulpicide." 

 The accompanying sketch by Mr. H. A. Cole represents the 

 " earth " in which the Badgers here mentioned live. 



Some of the following records may be of stragglers from 

 the Forest District : 



Mr. James English says (Essex. Nat., vol. i., p. 183) that 

 one was killed at Hill Hall Wood, Theydon Mount, in 1850; 

 another was shot in the same wood in 1874. Mr. Fleming 

 records (Field, March I4th, 1874) the capture of a fine animal 

 at Shailsmoor Spring, in this county, within seventeen miles 

 of London. Twelve years previously, near the same place, 

 one was dug out of a rabbit burrow. The next occurrence 

 shows that the species is not quite so invulnerable as we could 

 wish, since Mr. Miller Christy informs me that Mr. G. H. 

 Baxter, of Hutton Park, has a stuffed female badger which a 

 terrier killed in Epping Forest, near the Rising Sun, Wood- 

 ford, about the year 1888. The same gentleman records 

 (Zool., 1882, p. 303) one found dead in New Pasture Wood, 

 Great Saling ; and another discovered dying in High Wood, 

 Writtle Park (Proc. Essex Field Club, vol. iv., p. Ixviii). The 

 latter's existence had long previously been known to the 

 captor. Mr. E. A. Fitch notes (Essex Nat., vol. i., p. 114) 

 that a pair took up their abode in Park Wood, Shalford, and 

 bred there for at least three years. Mr. Robert Lodge 

 mentions (Essex Nat., vol. i., p. 1 86) one shot by mistake for 

 a cat in an outhouse on the north side of Ilford Station in 

 August, 1887. Another was killed on the line near Theydon 



