MAMMALS 



of weasels being seen fighting near here, so 

 engrossed that they almost allowed a man to 

 put his foot on them ; of a troop numbering 

 ten in company in one of my meadows ; and 

 of a weasel being chased by a rabbit out of 

 my wood, far out on to a ploughed field. A 

 friend (in Oxfordshire) told me that his keeper 

 recently found in a ' Wonder ' wire trap 

 (which requires no setting) a weasel and a rat, 

 the former being dead. The question natur- 

 ally suggests itself, which followed the other 

 in? 



1 8. Badger. Meles me/es, Linn. 



Bell Meles taxus. 



Still fairly represented in the county. They 

 no longer I believe occur in any of the 

 parishes in the south-east border of the county, 

 but they certainly occur in many, and pro- 

 bably in a large majority, of the remainder. 

 Mr. W. Uthwatt of Little Linford Manor 

 says there are none in that parish (though he 

 has twice turned one down there) or in that 

 of Newport Pagnell, but some were found in 

 the adjoining parish of Calverton. They 

 cannot be said to be ' generally distributed ' 

 like rabbits, moles, etc., but inhabit certain 

 woods or other spots, leaving others unoccu- 

 pied. A few miles from Buckingham where 

 woods are generally small, and the land 

 chiefly pasture, they inhabit holes near the 

 hedges of grass meadows quite devoid of 

 rough vegetation or any other cover. Here 

 on frosty mornings steam may be seen rising 

 from the holes, apparently showing unmistak- 

 ably where a badger is lying underneath. 

 During the last thirty-three years I have kept 

 a good many badgers in captivity ; a pair in 

 my possession at the time of writing were 

 caught about two miles from this house, and 

 I have at different times been offered a eood 



O 



many from this neighbourhood. The female 

 (of the above pair) was dug out in a neigh- 

 bouring wood on 2 March 1902, with her 

 two small cubs about three weeks old, which, 

 as I had expected, she killed during the ensu- 

 ing night. On different days in May 1902 

 I was brought another pair of cubs from the 

 wood previously mentioned, born probably 

 much about the same time as the other cubs, 

 and therefore then aged about three months. 

 These I also purchased, hoping to save their 

 lives. The young female died from injury 

 received in trapping, but the young male con- 

 tinued to share a cage with the old female, 

 where he gradually grew into a fine animal. 

 Early on the morning of 2 1 March i 903 young 

 were born, but whether the young male was 

 their father, or some wild male met with over 

 a year before I do not know. The gestation 



of badgers has been discussed over and over 

 again during the last half-century, and though 

 the accumulation of more instances is neces- 

 sary before the question can be considered 

 settled, yet the evidence available, when re- 

 viewed, seems to point unmistakably to the 

 very remarkable conclusion that the period 

 may be anything between under five and over 

 fifteen months, or a range of over ten months, 

 and yet that the young are all born within 

 a season of about six weeks. 1 In over twenty 

 cases in which either the exact or approximate 

 date of the births of young is recorded all 

 fall between 10 February and 21 March, a 

 small majority being in the latter month. 

 Moreover the females which paired earliest 

 by no means necessarily whelp earlier in the 

 six weeks' season than others which paired 

 several months after them. 



It seems probable that the length of the 

 individual gestation is correlated with a vary- 

 ing degree of maturity in the young when 

 born. For instance in one case the young 

 were stated to have been blind for twenty- 

 nine days, and in the case of a litter born in 

 my collection the time was about thirty days, 

 the bed-box being too dark to admit of certain 

 observation ; while Mr. J. Paterson, who has 

 bred several litters in captivity, states that the 

 young are blind for six weeks, and the same 

 time is given in a case recorded in; the Field, 

 II May 1872. There is a similar difference 

 of opinion as to whether the cubs are born 

 naked. The litter generally numbers two, 

 somewhat less frequently three ; sometimes 

 there is only one cub and occasionally four, 

 the average being about two and a quarter. 

 Their eyes are very inconspicuous, being 

 sunk, and not prominent as in the young of 

 most animals. They are rather long-lived 

 animals ; I had one female for over fourteen 

 years, which had then to be killed, as she dis- 

 located her shoulder ; and I know instances 

 of their living over fifteen years in captivity. 

 They are very inoffensive animals, and not at 

 all quarrelsome. Albinism (though I cannot say 

 whether in every case the eyes were pink, as 

 in some instances I merely saw skins where 

 the colour of the eyes had not been noted or 

 since forgotten) is common among badgers ; 

 but in every example that I have met with, 

 including two or three Bucks specimens, the 

 coat is not a uniform white, but the facial 

 stripes, and all other parts which are normally 

 black, are cinnamon-coloured. Badgers are 

 wholly nocturnal, or crepuscular, never ven- 

 turing abroad even in the long summer even- 

 ings, before at least the near approach of 

 twilight. 



i For details see the Zoologist, 1904, p. 1 08. 



161 



21 



