THE BADGER. 163 



follow the ridings, and are generally about two 

 feet in depth and a foot in width. In due course 

 these canals become overgrown with grass, a pit- 

 fall for the unwary, and they are greatly used 

 by the badgers as runways in passing from one 

 place to another. It is possible for the animal 

 to escape unseen within a yard or so of one's feet 

 by means of these artificial cuttings ; but their 

 use entails a counterbalancing disadvantage from 

 the badger's point of view, in that, though he is 

 unseen, he himself cannot see, and should his keen 

 nostrils fail to give him warning, he can very easily 

 be surprised as he noses about the trench-bottom. 



The New Forest badgers obtain a good deal 

 of their food from these canals. Beetles, worms, 

 and all sorts of small life fall into them and are 

 unable to escape, while snails, slugs, &c. abound in 

 the long grass and the brambles overhanging the 

 cuttings. On one occasion a friend of mine located 

 a badger simply by the ungenteel sounds of enjoy- 

 ment the animal made while eating its way along 

 one of these herbaceous tunnels. The ditches are 

 often tapped by an emergency hole from the warrens. 



POWERS OF DIGGING. 



Seton states that a badger spends thirty hours 

 underground for every hour it spends on the earth's 

 surface, which is probably a pretty accurate esti- 

 mate. Its whole mode of living is to come up 

 for a few hours, gorge itself to the extreme limits 

 of repletion, then remain underground or about 

 the warren in a more or less torpid state till 

 again hungry possibly a period of four or five 

 days. On many occasions after a badger-earth 

 has been stopped prior to a meet of the fox-hounds 

 (a fox will readily hole up with a badger), it has 



