BADGERS AND WOLVERENES 



By R. W. Shufeldt 



(PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS.) 



TN the North American fauna we have the American 

 *- badger, the California badger, the Mexican badger 

 and the Santa Anita badger. Essentially, they present 

 the same anatomical structure, while their differences 

 are chiefly to be found in their sizes and in the color- 

 variations of their pelts. Our American badger is the 

 type of the group. 



Badgers are, for the most part, clumsy animals, with 

 stout and squat forms, as though they had been flattened 

 out from above, downwards ; and this flattening includes 

 both head and tail, the latter being rather stout and 

 broad. The fur is fairly soft, with a general diffuse color- 



present article, we may select the photograph of an un- 

 usually large male American badger, which the writer 

 collected at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on the four- 

 ceenth of August, 1887. This animal was thirty-two 

 inches in length, and presented the markings of a typical 

 American badger, although it was shot well within the 

 range of the Mexican form. 



Badgers live in burrows which they dig themselves; 

 and in some parts of the West the writer has seen these 

 burrows very numerous in small areas. Although they 

 were all the work of badgers, many of them had been 

 dug to secure gophers, prairie marmots, mice, and other 



THE BADGER OF SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES 



This specimen was collected by the writer in New Mexico many years ago, and the photograph shows very well all the charac- 

 ters of the animal. Note that the black patch is in front of the ear and not behind it. 



ation, distinct markings occurring, as a rule, osly about 

 the head. Being inveterate diggers by habit, they have 

 stout legs, with feet armed with immense claws, especially 

 the forefeet. 



It has been the writer's good fortune to study badgers 

 in various parts of the United States, from the Yellow- 

 stone River to New Mexico and Arizona. He has had 

 them alive for a long time ; shot, dissected and described 

 them, and studied them in nature and in zoological gar- 

 dens. Large series of skins have also been studied in 

 museums and in private collections. To illustrate the 



rodents, upon which they prey ; and these burrows, 

 often covering several acres or more, are a source of 

 constant annoyance and actual danger to travelers on 

 horseback in those regions. The writer remembers rid- 

 ing over the prairie at full speed on one occasion, with 

 a shotgun in his hand, held at the grip ; his object was 

 to surprise a flock of geese that had come down in a 

 slough behind some cover, and this was a favorite 

 method of hunting them on the prairie. When within one 

 hundred yards of the slough his horse ran one of its 

 forelegs deep down into a badger burrow, the shock 



