62 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



gives tongue loudly. This means he has found his 

 game. The assistants then begin to dig, endeavouring 

 to come upon the hole at right angles, and if possible 

 between dog and badger. When they do so, the dog 

 is first removed, and the badger extracted with the 

 tongs. In England he is generally put in a bag, and 

 often sold to dog-fanciers for the purposes I have 

 before alluded to. In Germany, unless required for 

 the training of young dogs, he is more usually knocked 

 on the head. The skins fetch a good price, and in 

 some districts it is the custom to decorate the off-horse 

 in a waggon with one on the housings of the collar. 

 The fat is also valued. For this reason, badger- 

 digging in wine countries takes place at the vintage 

 season, when they are very fat, for they do great 

 havoc among the grapes. The fat makes first-rate 

 dressing for boots, and is also supposed to be excellent 

 for rheumatism, which, by the way, is said of tiger's 

 fat in India. The meat is eaten by the foresters, and 

 is not unpleasant, though it has perhaps a slightly 

 musky taste. It is only fair, however, to say that the 

 specimen I tasted was a very old one, with hardly a 

 tooth left in its head. 



In the way I have described we secured no less 

 than thirty-four badgers in an English western county 

 in a few months. They were afterwards let go in the 

 open and hunted with a pack of fox-terriers. The 

 sport they gave under these conditions was only 

 moderate, and disastrous to the dogs, which were 

 often cruelly mauled. I have known a badger bite 

 a terrier clean through the jaw, taking away a couple-. 



