BADGERS AND THEIR WAYS 



may not impossibly have done the mischief. Anyhow, 

 the stigma has remained, rightly or wrongly, with the 

 badgers, and the case is often cited, to the infamy of a 

 very harmless and inoffensive race of animals, by fox- 

 hunters and their adherents. 



Fox-hunters, in addition to their ancient and inborn 

 suspicion of the badger, have for ages been accustomed 

 to enter their young hounds to this quarry. Beckford, 

 in his instructions upon the education of the young 

 entry, writes as follows: "I know an old sportsman 

 who enters his young hounds first at a cat, which he 

 drags along the ground for a mile or two, at the end of 

 which he turns out a badger, first taking care to break 

 his teeth ; he takes out about two couple of old hounds 

 along with the young ones, to hold them in. He never 

 enters his young hounds but at vermin, for he says, 

 ' Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 

 he is old he will not depart from it.' ' 



A sporting writer of Charles II.'s time Nicholas 

 Cox has somewhat to say upon the same topic. 

 "If she" (the badger) " be hunted abroad with 

 Hounds, she biteth them most grievously whenever she 

 lays holds on them. For the prevention thereof, the 

 careful huntsmen put great broad collars made of 

 Grays' (badgers') skins about their Dogs' Necks. Her 

 manner is to fight on her Back, using thereby both her 

 Teeth and her Nails, and by blowing up her Skin after 

 a strange and wonderful manner she defendeth herself 

 against any blow and Teeth of Dogs ; only a small 

 stroke on her Nose will despatch her presently; you 

 may thrash your heart weary on her Back, which she 

 values as a matter of nothing." 1 



Poor badger ! for centuries he has been one of the 



1 As a matter of fact, the most vital part of the badger's anatomy is 

 at the back of the head. A blow there will easily kill this animal. 



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