THE BADGER 27 



instance of interference with either pheasants or 

 partridges, which is more than I can say for our 

 friend the fox ! The worst that I have known 

 badgers guilty of is taking rabbits out of snares, 

 leaving merely the skins turned neatly inside 

 out. Even at this they are not so tiresome as 

 foxes. A fox will go round the " wires/' eat 

 half one rabbit, bite the head off the next, spoil 

 the third, and so on, but the badger eats one or 

 two and leaves the rest. The sign of its work 

 is the skins turned inside out, it is wonderful 

 how neatly it does this, the accomplishment 

 being quite its own. Probably the tiny birds, 

 such as the willow wren, robin, and others that 

 nest upon the ground, suffer most from the 

 badger. Their young ones remain from ten to 

 fourteen days helpless in the nest, and are tempt- 

 ing morsels for any hungry brock that is nosing 

 round. It also accounts for many nestfuls of 

 young field-voles, being one of the creatures that 

 help to keep down this prolific little rodent. The 

 badger is said to be very fond of hedgehogs, but 

 I have never found any evidence in support of 

 this, though hedgehogs abound here, and any 

 badger that was so disposed could find as many 

 as it wanted. It has also been asserted that it 

 is very partial to the roots of the wild arum or 

 " Lords and Ladies " (Arum maculatum) , x but 

 again I cannot confirm this. The plant is 

 particularly abundant in Shropshire, yet the only 



* Mr. L. C. Hocking, in a letter to Wild Life, vol. vi, No. 4, 

 p. 125. 



