236 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP, xrcxr. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



The Badger: Antiquity of ; Cleanliness; Abode of ; Food; Family of 

 Trapping Badgers Anecdotes Escape of Badger Anecdotes Strength 

 of Cruelty to. 



AMONGST the aboriginal inhabitants of our wilder districts, who 

 are likely to be soon extirpated, we may reckon that ancient, 

 peaceable, and respectable quadruped, the badger; of an ancient 

 family he certainly is the fossil remains which have been 

 found, prove his race to have been co-existent with that of the 

 mammoths and megatheriums which once wandered over our 

 islands. Though the elk arid beaver have long since ceased to 

 exist amongst us, our friend the brock still continues to burrow 

 in the solitary and unfrequent recesses of our larger woods. Per- 

 severing and enduring in his every-day life, he appears to have 

 been equally so, in clinging to existence during the numerous 

 changes which have passed over the face of the globe since the 

 first introduction of his family into it. Notwithstanding the per- 

 secutions and indignities that he is unjustly doomed to suffer, I 

 maintain that he is far more respectable in his habits than we 

 generally consider him to be. " Dirty as a badger," " stinking 

 as a badger," are two sayings often repeated, but quite inappli- 

 cable to him. As far as we can learn of the domestic economy 

 of this animal when in a state of nature, he is remarkable for 

 his cleanliness his extensive burrows are always kept perfectly 

 clean, and free from all offensive smell ; no filth is ever found 

 about his abode ; everything likely to offend his olfactory nerves 

 is carefully removed. I, once, in the north of Scotland, fell in 

 with a perfect colony of badgers; they had taken up their abode 

 in an unfrequented range of wooded rocks, and appeared to have 

 been little interrupted in their possession of them. The foot- 

 paths to and from their numerous holes were beaten quite hard ; 

 and what is remarkable arrtfworthy of note, they had different 

 small pits dug at a certain distance from their abodes, which were 



