Badgers. 75 



A dog will turn round and round in the same way 

 before he lies down on the hearthrug. 



These reeds sometimes grow to a great height, as 

 much as ten or twelve feet. Along the Thames they 

 are used, bound in bundles, to pitch the barges ; when 

 the hull has been roughly coated with pitch, one end 

 of the bundle of reeds (thickest end preferred) is set 

 on fire and passed over it to make it melt and run 

 into the chinks. So, mayhap, the Saxon and Danish 

 rovers may have used them to pitch the bottoms of 

 their ' ceols ' when worn from constantly grounding on 

 the shallows and eyots. 



Here in the furze too is the haunt of the badger. 

 This animal becomes rarer year after year — the disuse 

 of the great rabbit-warrens being one cause ; still he 

 lingers, and may be traced in the rabbit ' buries,' 

 where he enlarges a hole for his habitation, sleeps 

 during the day, and comes forth in the gloaming. In 

 summer he digs up the wasps' nests, not, as has been 

 supposed, for the honey, but for the white larvae they 

 contain : the wasp secretes no honey at all, and her 

 nest is simply a series of cells in which the grubs 

 mature. Some credit the fox with a fondness for the 

 same food ; and even the hornet's nest is said to be 

 similarly ravaged. It is the nest of the humble-bee 

 which the badger roots up for the honey. The humble- 

 bee uses a tiny hole in a dry bank, sometimes a crack 



