228 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CH. XVI. 



and ferocity, and who flew straight at me on my 

 approaching her. Having killed her, I left her near 

 the place, covered over with sand; the badgers came 

 and scratched her up, and nearly devoured her by 

 the next morning; so I put traps about the remains 

 of her body; but they managed to spring every trap 

 without being caught, and for several days they 

 escaped in the same way. The traps were always 

 sprung ; the badgers' tracks were all round them, 

 and the baits invariably taken away. At last, 

 determined not to be beat, I baited my trap with 

 an apple, as something new and unexpected to 

 them, and immediately caught what I wanted, a 

 fine old badger. 



My old keeper was sitting on a hillock about 

 three o'clock one morning in the beginning of 

 May, watching quietly a few wild-geese which 

 he had discovered feeding in a field not very 

 far off, but out of shot. In this hillock was 

 a badger's hole. Presently he heard a grunt 

 behind him, which he took for a pig ; and look- 

 ing round he saw, standing in a clover field close 

 to him, an immensely large badger, whose object 

 seemed to be to get into a hole on the hillock, to 

 reach which he had no alternative but to pass 

 within a yard of the man's legs. After they had 

 looked at each other for some time in this way, the 



