60 WOODLAND, MOOR, AND STREAM 



creatures, that are supposed to be strictly carnivorous, 

 will eat fruit when they can get it 



The badger, poor beast ! is getting scarce ; more's 

 the pity, from the animal collector's and the naturalist's 

 point of view. He generally manages to dispense 

 with the observation of the latter ; for, unless his 

 ways are well known, he will escape from a place 

 that might have been supposed strong enough to 

 hold a rhinoceros. All his family have been ex- 

 cavators from the beginning, on the most scientific 

 principles. Unless you take the greatest possible 

 precautions, he will dig himself out and get away in 

 quick time. He is a most quiet and orderly being, 

 and a contented one too, if let alone ; for, as a rule, 

 he is fat. 



His persecutors are many, from the keeper down 

 to the rat-catcher's lad, who boasts that he has ' the 

 best dog at any varmint as ever run on four legs.' 

 Some of our common expressions require alteration, 

 being founded on ignorance. For instance, folks 

 say, ' Dirty as a badger ' ; whereas a cleaner creature 

 in its home and surroundings would be hard to find. 

 A very wide-awake individual he is ; and he need 

 be, for the hand of both man and of boy is against 

 him, and utterly without reason. 



If the badger had but the same privileges ex- 



