264 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



forested country gave it the conditions it liked. 

 Its general habits, so far as they can be ob- 

 served in so shy, secretive and well-hidden a 

 creature, are interesting, as I have shown in 

 the chapter "A Badger and his Kin" in my 

 Wild Neighbors. These cannot be dwelt upon 

 here, but they show that none of our small 

 mammals has been more misunderstood or 

 mistakenly and wastefully persecuted. As a 

 result the badger is now restricted in its dis- 

 tribution to the arid region, although scattered 

 pairs linger "here and there even in Wisconsin 

 and Minnesota. And yet, its disappearance 

 has not been wholly due to reckless destruction, 

 for it seems unable to endure the forestation 

 and cultivation of lands as they are settled. 

 This may be due to the sedentary nature of the 

 little beast, which is by no means a wanderer 

 or even a traveler. Seton remarks that prob- 

 ably a badger never in his whole life goes a 

 mile from the home in which he was born. The 

 consequence is that when a family has been ex- 

 terminated another is not likely to take its 

 place. It is for this reason that a man should 

 be careful how he wastes the life of a badger 



