44 THE BADGER 



development, shambling gait, and chiefly in his 

 plantigrade method of walking with the whole 

 foot, from heel to toe, upon the ground. The 

 thirty-eight teeth with which his enormously 

 powerful jaws are armed betray the omnivorous 

 nature of his diet. He measures some 3 feet 

 in length, including the short tail of 5 or 6 

 inches. His short and powerful legs and feet 

 are provided with long and strong claws, par- 

 ticularly the fore-paws. His height is barely 

 a foot, so that with his long coat he appears 

 to brush the ground. In colour the upper parts 

 are of a uniform silvery grey, the individual 

 hairs being banded with blackish-brown and 

 white, the underparts and legs are black, the 

 head white with a black stripe on each side 

 from the nose over the eye and ear. A full- 

 grown badger weighs from 20 to 30 Ibs., the 

 male being somewhat the heavier. Mr. A. E. 

 Pease, M.P., in his monograph on the badger, 1 

 says that they have been known to weigh up to 

 about 40 Ibs. ; but that the heaviest that he had 

 ever weighed in his own experience scaled over 

 35 Ibs. The jaws are immensely powerful, 

 the under-jaw, as already remarked by Blasius, 2 

 being interlocked with the upper jaw ; the 

 canine teeth of the under-jaw are particularly 



1 Laurence and Bullen, 1898. 2 Sdugth. Deutschl. 1857. 



