USEFUL, FARM-PACKBADGER HUNT. 73 



cubs of boys, suffered to keep dogs of this kind, to worry and tear to pieces their 

 own and their neighbours' cats. 



The domestic use of the Terrier, is well known to be that of a guard to the 

 house, more especially in the Country, against more destructive vermin rats, 

 weazles, polecats, stoats, and all their kind. The quantity of bread and other corn, 

 devoured by rats, few have yet perhaps dared even to conceive. Some years 

 since, when wheat was at its highest war price, it was stated by a very experienced 

 person, at a market-dinner in a County about sixty miles from the Metropolis, 

 that, upon a considerable farm in the Neighbourhood, the property of a respectable 

 landholder, who cultivated it himself, the rats were sufficiently numerous to consume 

 annually, corn of all kinds, to the amount in value, of the rent and tithe together. 

 This person professed that he would undertake to make satisfactory proof of his 

 assertion, on condition of the proprietor's leave ; at the same time offering a consi- 

 derable bet on the event. Sporting dogs out of this question, of which doubtless, 

 every farmer desires to possess some, the useful pack upon a farm consists of Sheep- 

 dogs, rough Terriers, Vermin Curs, Wappits, before all the best guard, and Ferrils 

 and these should not be kept merely to be looked at. 



To return to the Terrier as a sporting dog. Few can be ignorant of the old 

 caution against entering a young terrier at a badger : nevertheless, last year, a 

 man who trains dogs for sale, from some motive or other, or from ignorance or 

 obstinacy, made the experiment with two fine young dogs, of blood and strength, 

 as he boasted, which nothing could withstand. The dogs, in truth, justified 

 the character given of them, as to courage, going instantly up to the badger 

 without flinching ; the consequence was, one of them had both fore legs bitten 

 through and broken in several places, and the other an eye bitten out, beside 

 receiving a desperate wound in the belly. They were both obliged to be killed, 

 although they had been valued at a considerable price. 



The same danger is not incurred, when a badger is turned out, and the young 

 dogs hunt him in company with the old; in that case, the young ones may be fairly 

 and safely entered. A badger will run in an open country, and particularly 

 across the furrows of ploughed land, with a speed, which no one unaccustomed to 

 him, would suppose, if persons on horseback do not cross him, and put him out of 

 his course. There have been instances of his running four, or half a dozen miles, 

 in good style ; which however does not often happen, and when once driven to 

 covert, as he cannot well be lost, if the hunt be by day, he will stir no farther, but 

 fight it out bravely to death, which will not be achieved by the dogs, whether old 

 or young, without some lasting marks of his good-will. The instant he is closed 

 upon and pressed, lie will turn upon his back, and use his powerful teeth and 

 claws with infinitely more effect upon his adversaries, the dogs, than they can 

 shew upon him, defended by nature with his tough and bristly and almost impe- 

 netrable skin. Having defended himself courageously, according to his natural 



