OF QJJADRUPEDS. 4ir 



precipitate fury of clefirc tleftroy an ufeful and innocent race of 

 beings, intended by providence to give us both food and plea- 

 fure, and fome part of our ornamentaal and necefTary cloathing, 

 for the pitiful and brutal ambition only of boailing among their 

 companions of their killing their twenty, their thirty, and their 

 forty brace, in a feafon. Savage and inhuman butchery ! Away 

 with it from Northumberland. Let pofterity enjoy the fame blef- 

 fings, fo contributive to health, as our forefathers have done, 

 with moderation. 



The Badger, which has various names affigned it (a) y is fre- 

 quent in the woods, and by the fides of rivers, in our alpine 

 vales. It is a fierce creature in its own defence, but otherwife 

 is very harmlefs. It provides itfelf a fubterrene dwelling, and 

 lives upon infects, reptiles, and the fmaller tribes of wild ani- 

 mals. It lives peaceably and retired in the neighbourhood of 

 tame ones, and for that reafon is feldom difturbed, except by the 

 young people for the fake of making trial of its courage with 

 fome of their houfe-dogs of noted ferocity, but fome of them 

 often have occafion to repent of the experiment, lofmg perhaps 

 a favourite or a valuable dog or two in the combat before it is 

 killed, or made to fubmit ; and fometimes one of their fportive 

 company receiving a terrible wound in the leg by a bite of the 

 incenfed and injured creature, which ufually itrikes to the bone 

 with its obtufe, ftriated teeth, with difficulty to be removed, but 

 by its death. It is of the fize, and pretty much of the fliape, 



(a) Melef. Gefn. quadr. p. 686. Taxus. Charlct. quadr. p. 18. n. 6. Taxus f. Melef. 

 Raj. quadr. p. 185. Mcles unguibus anticis longiffimis. Linn. Syft, Nat. 37. Faun. Suec. 

 p. 6. n. 15. 



BADGER. BROCK. Cbarht, 1. c. PATE. GREY, quilnf^em. 



G g g 2 Of 



