WAYS OF THE HUNTED 253 



obstinacy was unmistakably expressed. But it is out of 

 keeping in daylight. To view the badger properly you 

 should view it, like fair Melrose, at night. The low scuttle 

 has then a proper furtiveness. You might take the beast 

 for a marauder ; but of all the mammals few do less harm. 

 There is no good reason why it should ever be killed. You 

 could not say this, if economy is a motive for destruction, 

 even for the hare, which indeed is the forester's very worst 

 enemy. It is easier to observe the badger than is commonly 

 thought, for in his almost Mosaic attention to cleanliness, he 

 attends regular resorts, which, when once discovered, may 

 be easily watched. 



But he is not a favourite. Fox-hunters do not like him, 

 and many a badger has been dug out because he is supposed 

 to keep foxes away. Nor do keepers like him, for he is 

 supposed to be destructive. It is true enough that he is 

 omnivorous, in the sense that, at certain times and on certain 

 occasions, he will eat anything. But the more we study the 

 food of animals, at any rate of the larger mammals, the more 

 clearly it appears that they will vary their diet indefinitely 

 under the pressure of circumstance. The writer has absolute 

 evidence that the brown squirrel, as a rule most harmless 

 and dainty of animals, will eat young birds ; will indeed 

 climb to the rookery on purpose to feed on them. The grey 

 squirrel is worse. It has recently become a naturalised 

 English mammal. The Park that is sanctuary and zoo at 

 Woburn was full of them, but the Duke of Bedford found 

 them so destructive of other animals that he was forced to 

 their destruction. In America, their native home, opinions 

 differ about their character. The writer was once walking 

 round the beautiful zoo at the Bronx Park outside New 

 York, in company with one of the directors. The grey 

 squirrels were seen in all the open parts and were given 



