THE BADGER 31 



in captivity, 1 and in two instances after fifteen 

 months' solitary confinement, 3 but these cases are 

 almost certainly abnormal and due to captivity. 

 Though badgers are somewhat silent animals, 

 they become noisy enough when the all-important 

 business of choosing a mate is undertaken, and 

 will then make the night ring with their clamour. 

 There was one evening which I shall never forget 

 (September 12, 1920), for the badgers held a 

 great concert that night. I went out about 

 9.50 p.m. to shut a dog up; it was a still beautiful 

 evening, there was no moon, and it was very dark. 

 I stood for a moment listening to the owls, which 

 were hooting on all sides, their calls ringing very 

 loud in the stillness. Suddenly there was a 

 blood-curdling shriek, a piercing, agonizing cry, 

 which was repeated at intervals of a few moments. 

 Even by day it would have been a startling noise, 

 but heard in the dark it was terrifying ! My 

 first impression was that a vixen had uttered 

 it, for the love call of a vixen is a similar fiendish 

 cry, but she does not repeat the sound, and 

 this lamentation rose again and again on the 

 still night air. My brother had come out, and 

 together we stood and listened, and it became 

 evident that the creature was moving along the 

 covert-side, but it was too dark to see anything. 



1 Lydekker says, " The probable explanation of these discrep- 

 ancies is that in certain cases, as in the Roe-deer, the impregnated 

 ovum undergoes a period of quiescence before development ; such 

 retardation being not improbably induced by captivity." 

 (R. Lydekker, British Mammals, p. 131.) 



' See A. H. Cocks, The Zoologist, 1904. 



