n8 <I(AfMBLES OF A VOfMINIS 



ready to make a home in any spot where a fox could find 

 safe cover, is less generally known than either. Unlike 

 them, the badger plays a part no more in any phase of 

 sport. He is less often seen by daylight even than the 

 fox. His habits hide him altogether from the general 

 view. With his powerful claws he digs himself a dwelling 

 in the ground, in some quiet and secluded spot, in the 

 depths of a wood or in some rocky hollow in the moor. 

 Cave-hunters find his long foot-prints in the black earth 

 on cavern floors, though not all have been so fortunate 

 as Boyd Dawkins, who watched by the glimmer of his 

 candles the shy beasts running off to hide in still darker 

 corners of the cave. 



But, though comparatively seldom seen, the badger is 

 by no means rare. It is known to inhabit suitable spots 

 in more than half the counties of England, and is widely 

 scattered through the sister kingdoms. So old an 

 inhabitant is he that his ancestors must have been 

 familiar even with the mammoth. His name, in its 

 still-used provincial form of Brock, has left its mark on 

 many an English country side. Such names as Brock- 

 ley, Brockhampton, Brockendale are found throughout 

 the country. ' 



With the keeper and the farmer, the badger has 

 received it were not fair to him to say that he has 

 earned a reputation little better than that of fox or 

 polecat. It is not to be expected that he would go out 

 of his way to avoid a nestful of eggs, a sitting pheasant, 

 or a brood of young partridges that he may chance to 

 stumble on in his nightly wanderings. That he does at 



