CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



291 







THE EUROPEAN BADGER. 



legs are short and muscular; the body broad, flat, and compact, and about two feet four inches 

 long; the head is more or less prolonged; the snout pointed; the ears small, and the tail short. 

 Beneath the anus there is an aperture of considerable size which opens transversely, and exudes 

 from its inner surface a greasy or oleaginous matter of very offensive odor. The same formation 

 is observed in many other genera of carnivorous mammals, though the qualities of the substance 

 Secreted differ according to the species. In the civets and genets, for instance, its smell is so 

 pleasing as to entitle it to the rank of perfume ; while in the Moufettes, on the contrary, its odor 

 is so extremely fetid as to have acquired for them, above all other animals, the generic name of 

 Mephites, translated by the strong English term of Stinkards. In America we call them Skunks, 

 i term which everybody's experience has defined without the aid of a dictionary. 



The hide of the badger is amazingly thick and tough ; the hair uniformly long and coarse over 

 :he whole body, and trailing along the ground ou eaeh side as the animal walks. The badger 

 ind its congeners offer a strange intermixture of colors, which is seen in no other mammal, except 

 ;hose of the genera Gulo and Mephitis, which approximate so nearly to it in many other respects : 

 n general, the darker shades are found to predominate upon the back and upper parts of the 

 >ody, and the lighter below ; but in the animals above mentioned this general rule is reversed, 

 ind it is the light shades which occupy the back and shoulders, while the dark ones are spread 

 >ver the breast and abdomen. The head of the badger, for instance, is white, except the region 

 >eneath the chin, which is black, and two bands of the same color, which rise on each side a 

 ittle behind the corners of the mouth, and after passing backward and enveloping the eye and 

 >ar, terminate at the junction of the head and neck. The hairs of the upper part of the body, 

 :onsidered separately, are of three different colors — yellowish white at the bottom, black in the 

 niddle, and ashy gray at the point ; the last color alone, however, appears externally, and gives 

 he uniform sandy-gray shade which covers all the upper parts of the body : the tail is furnished 

 vith long coarse hair of the same color and quality, and the throat, breast, belly, and limbs arc 

 ;overed with shorter hair, of a uniform deep black. 



