MAY. AURORA BOREALIS. 229 



uttering a most ill-natured kind of grunt, suddenly 

 put his nose to the ground, and passing close to the 

 keeper made a rush to the hole, with all his hair 

 standing straight on end, and showing his teeth in 

 so determined a manner, as completely to take away 

 all presence of mind from the old fellow ; so much 

 so, indeed, that he neither shot at him nor obstructed 

 his free entrance to the hole in any way. He tells 

 me that when he has been sitting quietly watching 

 for geese, otters, &c., he has not unfrequently seen 

 the badgers going about together in companies of 

 three or four. 



There was a heavy gale of wind at the beginning 

 of this month. I was out late with the keeper, and 

 just before it commenced we saw a very brilliant 

 aurora borealis, or as they term it here, " The 

 Merry Dancers." He told me that when the aurora 

 was very bright, and the flashes rapidly waving 

 through the sky, he had frequently thought that he 

 heai-d the merry dancers emit a faint rustling noise, 

 like the " moving of dead leaves," but this was only 

 when the night was quite calm, and there was no 

 sound to disturb the perfect stillness. The idea 

 came from him quite uncalled for by any remark of 

 mine, and was entirely the result of his own actual 

 observation. I was pleased to hear him say this, as 

 I had more than once imagined that the aurora, 



