BADGERS AND WOLVERENES 



107 



Indians take advantage of this habit by running up to the 

 burrow and deliberately kill the animal with a pistol shot 

 as he showed his head. In those days Indians used also 

 to frequently capture them by running upon them on 

 horseback, dismounting as near as possible, completing 

 the chase, and catching them on foot. 



The captive badger which the writer had at Fort Win- 

 gate, New Mexico, was an old one, and soon became 

 quite tame ; when in good humor he allowed one to stroke 

 and handle him. He was fed principally upon raw meat, 

 but he ate nearly everything that was offered him ; more- 

 over, he was very fond of water, and he drank a good 

 deal of it. He has seen Indians eat badgers, but they 

 will also eat skunks and the uncooked intestines of wa- 

 piti and buffalo or rather they did, when buffalo were 

 plenty. Having often skinned both old and young 

 badgers, the odor that came from them was quite enough 

 to deter the writer from ever entertaining the idea of 

 dining upon them, however served. This odor is rank 

 and foul to the very limit of one's imagination. 



In regions where they have severe winters, badgers 

 probably remain during the cold spell in a more or less 

 dormant state within the stronghold of their deep bur- 

 rows ; but they are quite fat, however, when they appear 

 in the spring. At this time it is an easy matter to drown 

 them out of their dens, as the ground is frozen and hard, 

 and the water runs straight to the bottom of their bur- 

 rows ; the poor, surprised creatures must come to the sur- 



face so it is death to them either way. There is more 

 of an excuse for this interesting animal to hibernate than 

 for his remote relative, the bear; for what could a badger 

 find to eat after the winter had set in? Surely, no grass- 

 hoppers or other insects, and no snakes. Then, too, the 

 ground is as hard as flint rock, and it would take him 

 more than a day to dig out any of his rodent neighbors, 

 even were he able to do it at all. Good, sound hiberna- 

 tion is his only salvation. 



Badgers are sometimes caught in steel and other traps ; 

 but it takes a very expert trapper to accomplish this, and 

 even such will fail nine times out of ten. 



Beyond the mere fact that the American badger mates 

 in the spring, little or nothing is known about the repro- 

 duction of this species or its congeners. The reader may 

 have seen very young ones in zoological gardens. So 

 far as one can judge, there seem to be three or four 

 to the litter, and they make their appearance occasionally 

 during the daytime. 



A red badger was once seen by the writer; but he was 

 wet, and had been digging in red clay; and no doubt 

 albino badgers have existed perhaps, too, cases of mel- 

 anism have occurred among them, as all mammals are 

 subject to these peculiar states, though no examples may 

 ever have been seen by man. 



The author of "Fur-bearing Animals" has aptly called 

 the badger a "timid" animal. And "so it is, in the sense 

 that it avoids rather than confronts impending danger; 



-1|. 



.,l..l^-.-JPtt--.TVjHy 



AN OLD BADGER WITH A FAMILY OF THREE 



The writer obtained the photograph of this group in the Mammal Hall of the United States National Museum. It was mounted 

 by the late Mr. William Palmer, and through the courte.sy of the Museum's authorities it illustrates the story ot the badgers 

 home life as here told. Note the Striped Prairie Squirrel the old one has in its mouth. 



