WILD LIFE 75 



■were five great holes and an enormous heap of flints 

 and lumps of hard chalk, many of them weighing 

 six to seven pounds. These badgers must indeed 

 have possessed an amazing strength to make their 

 earth in such a place. The trunks and low horizontal 

 branches of the elder bushes had been used, some 

 to rub their hide on and some to clean their clay- 

 covered feet, so that some were rubbed smooth and 

 others plastered with clay. The floors of the burrows 

 as far doAvn as one could see and feel were thickly 

 carpeted with freshly gathered moss, carried down 

 to form the nest. 



It struck me very forcibly when viewing this earth, 

 and thinking of its occupant's tremendous power, 

 tenacity, and hardiness, and of his excessive shyness 

 and strictly nocturnal habits, that, in spite of his rarity, 

 he may yet win in the race of life with his more 

 numerous and protected neighbour, the fox. That 

 fox-hunting will eventually die out as a national 

 sport in this country is now a common belief even 

 among those who pursue it with the greatest en- 

 thusiasm ; and when that time arrives there will 

 be nothing to save the fox from the fate of the wolf, 

 the marten, and the wild cat; unless indeed a new 

 sentiment should spring up in the place of the existing 

 one to preserve him as a member of the British fauna 

 — a sentiment similar to that which has preserved the 

 useless heron in this country, and is now saving the 

 golden eagle from extermination in the north of 



