THE BADGER 29 



He vanished down one of the entrances, and 

 that was the last I saw of him. It was here that 

 Jemima likewise came to join her wild relatives, 

 for one evening Diana felt the " call of the 

 wild " and vanished into the twilight never 

 to return, so that the unfriendly Jemima was 

 left alone, whereupon I decided to give her 

 liberty, and took her to the big woods, to rejoin 

 her clan, where I hope they all lived long and 

 merrily. 



Perhaps Grumps met here an old acquaintance, 

 for while living with me he had had the com- 

 panionship of a fine female badger, which badger 

 escaped one night and left him behind. They 

 were kept in a building that had originally been 

 a pigsty, and had walls four feet high, on the 

 top of which a fence of upright iron bars had 

 been placed, the whole being quite eight feet 

 in height. The bars were only an inch apart, 

 so it was impossible for anything to squeeze 

 between. The place was roofed over by strong 

 wire netting resting on iron cross pieces; in fact 

 it appeared quite badger proof, but it was not ! 

 For several nights beforehand the wild badgers 

 had been visiting the place, for each morning 

 there were fresh muddy footprints on the door, 

 showing how they had tried in vain to reach 

 those inside. Then there came a morning when 

 there were even more padmarks than before, 

 the strangers must have spent the greater part 

 of the night there, and they had not gone away 

 alone, for there was a hole in the wired roof, and 



