252 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



obstinate. On the coast of South Wales, where the animal 

 is very common, the writer has seen a gang of self-constituted 

 navvies dig a whole afternoon and still fail to penetrate the 

 remotest tunnel of the earth where the badger is digging. 

 On the other hand, he has known the small Sealyham terriers, 

 a hunter much cultivated in Pembrokeshire, draw a badger 

 within a few minutes. For a while the animal shows no 

 fight. It is concerned solely with passive resistance, shrink- 



OTTERS SWIMMING 



ing from the light almost as sedulously as from the terrier. 

 When put in a bag and carried off it scarcely struggles, but 

 lies, like Brer Rabbit, waiting events. If it is released 

 anywhere near its home the inference is from badgers 

 caught but not harmed in Pembrokeshire it makes back to 

 its hole as straight as a homing pigeon, and heeds nothing in 

 the way. On one such occasion two men, who had been left 

 to guard the hole, failed altogether to divert the animal by 

 a yard from its course. It brushed the leg of the man who 

 tried to stop it, and disappeared down the hole in a flash. 

 It had run across two grass fields at an astounding rate, 

 considering the awkward roll of the gait, in which blind 



