228 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CU. XVI. 



and ferocity, and who flew straight at me on my 

 approaching her. Having killed her, I left her near 

 the place, covered over with sand ; the badgers came 

 and scratched her up, and nearly devoured her by 

 the next morning ; so I put traps about the remains 

 of her body ; but they managed to spring every trap 

 without being caught, and for several days they 

 escaped in the same way. The traps were always 

 sprung ; the badgers' tracks were all round them, 

 and the baits invariably taken away. At last, 

 determined not to be beat, I baited my trap with 

 an apple, as something new and unexpected to them, 

 and immediately caught what I wanted, a fine old 

 badger. 



My old keeper was sitting on a hillock about 

 three o'clock one morning in the beginning of 

 May, watcliing quietly a few wild geese, which 

 he had discovered feeding in a field not very 

 far off, but out of shot. In this hillock was a 

 badger's hole. Presently he heard a grunt behind 

 him, which he took for a pig ; and looking round 

 he saw, standing in a clover field close to him, an 

 immensely large badger, whose object seemed to 

 be to get into a hole on the hillock, to reach which 

 he had no alternative but to pass within a yard of 

 the man's legs. After they had looked at each 

 other for some time in this way, the badger at last 



