Sappers and Miners 



meet his needs. Being a much-persecuted beast, the fox 

 usually sees to it that there are several exits from his 

 earth, as his burrow is called ; he also provides himself 

 with more than one earth, so that when he is driven out 

 of one home he may seek another. When his home is 

 the result of his own labours it is usually nothing more 

 than a simple tunnel ; should he have purloined the 

 residence of some other sapper, he takes things as he finds 

 them, and never alters the dwelling to suit his needs. 



His cousin the Arctic fox is a much more expert miner. 

 These foxes are of semi-social habits, crowding together 

 after the manner of rabbits, yet one family keeps its home 

 separate from its neighbour. Their burrows are always 

 driven deep into the earth, for the better protection of 

 their owners against the biting cold. At the termination 

 of the entrance tunnels, for there are always several of 

 these, is a large dwelling chamber ; from this chamber a 

 short tunnel leads into a smaller chamber, the nursery 

 for the young. Frequently the entrance tunnels are con- 

 nected with one another by cross borings, so that the 

 whole structure is exceedingly complex. 



After the mole our greatest native sapper is undoubtedly 

 the badger, formerly, and still in some parts, known as 

 the brock, hence the names Brockenhurst, Brockley and 

 a few others. The badger is shy ; he rarely ventures forth 

 by day, though we have seen him in playful mood towards 

 evening in a little-frequented part of Yorkshire. As we 

 have noted with our other sappers, the badger's dwelling 

 contains several exits ; half-a-dozen or more are not 

 uncommon. Some of these side tunnels, it is presumed, 

 are built for ventilation purposes ; at any rate the badger 

 rarely makes use of more than two or three of the many 

 ways into his home. Each entrance is widely separated 

 from the others, each tunnel may extend as far as thirty 

 feet, and all the tunnels meet in a common chamber five 

 or six feet below ground-level. That some of the tunnels 

 are simply air-shafts is rendered more probable by the 

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