MAY. AURORA BOREALIS. 229 



badger at last uttering a most ill-natured kind of 

 grunt, suddenly put his nose to the ground, and 

 passing close to the keeper made a rush to the hole, 

 with all his hair standing straight on end, and 

 showing his teeth in so determined a manner as 

 completely to take away all presence of mind from 

 the old fellow; so much so, indeed, that he neither 

 shot at him nor obstructed his free entrance to the 

 hole in any way. He tells me that when he has 

 been sitting quietly watching for geese, otters, etc., 

 he has not unfrequently seen the badgers going 

 about together in companies of three or four. 



There was a heavy gale of wind at the beginning 

 of this month. I was out late with the keeper, and 

 just before it commenced we saw a very brilliant 

 aurora borealis ; or, as they term it here, " The 

 Merry Dancers." He told me that when the 

 aurora was very bright, and the flashes rapidly 

 waving through the sky, he had frequently thought 

 that he heard the merry dancers emit a faint 

 rustling noise, like the "moving of dead leaves," but 

 this was only when the night was quite calm, and 

 there was no sound to disturb the perfect stillness. 

 The idea came from him quite uncalled for by any 

 remark of mine, and was entirely the result of his 

 own actual observation. I was pleased to hear 

 him say this, as I had more than once imagined 



