THE BADGER. 



38' 



When the Badger is employed in digging a burrow, it makes use of its nose in order 

 to push aside the earth, which is then scraped away by the fore-paws and flung as far 

 back as possible. In a very short time, the accumulation of earth becomes so con- 

 siderable that it impedes the animal's movements, and if permitted to remain would soon 

 choke up the tunnel which the miner is so industriously excavating. The hinder paws 

 are now brought into play, and the earth is flung farther back by their action. As the 

 excavation proceeds, the accumulated earth becomes so inconvenient that the Badger is 

 forced to remove it entirely out of the burrow, by retrograding from its position and 

 pushing the loose earth away in its progress. Having thus cleared the tunnel from the 

 impediment, the Badger proceeds to fling the earth as far away as possible, and until 

 it has done so will not resume its labors. 



In this burrow the female Badger makes her nest and rears her young, which are 

 generally three or four in number. The nest is made of well-dried grass, and stored with 

 provisions in the shape of grass-balls, which are firmly rolled together, and laid up in a 

 kind of supplementary chamber that acts the part of a larder. There are also several 

 ingeniously contrived sinks, wherein are deposited the remnants of the food and other 

 offensive substances. 



BADGER. Meles Taxus. 



The food of the Badger is of a mixed character, being partially vegetable and partly 

 animal. Snails and worms are greedily devoured by this creature, and the wild bees, 

 wasps, and other fossorial hymenoptera find a most destructive foe in the Badger, which 

 scrapes away the protecting earth and devours honey, cells, and grubs together, without 

 being deterred from its meal by the stings of the angry bees. The skin of the Badger 

 is so tough, and lies so loosely on the body, that even if a bee or a wasp could find a 

 bare spot wherein to plant its sting, the Badger would in all probability care little for 

 the wound ; and as the covering of hair is so dense that no bee-sting can force its way 

 through the furry mantle, the Badger is able to feast at its ease, undisturbed by the 

 attacks of its winged antagonists. 



As is the case with the generality of weasels, the Badger is furnished with an apparatus 

 which secretes a substance of an exceedingly offensive odor, to which circumstance is 

 probably owing much of the popular prejudice against the " stinking brock." 



