MAMMALIA—BADGER. 119 
man, and digs a subterraneous residence, where it spends, at least three 
rourths of its existence, and never ventures forth but in search of food. It 
burrows in the ground with particular facility, as its body is rather of an 
oblong form, and its claws, those especially of the fore feet, are very long 
und compact. The hole which it thus forms often proceeds to a great depth 
below the surface of the earth, and the passage to it is always oblique and 
winding. 
The fox, who is less expert at such excavations, often appropriates to his 
own convenience the labors of the badger. 
Unable to compel him from his retreat by force, it drives him from it dy 
stratagem, often remains a fixed sentinel at the mouth of the passage, 
disturbs it, and, as an infallible expedient, it is said, emits his ordure. The 
badger gone, he immediately assumes possession of it, enlarges it, and every 
way accommodates it to his own purpose. Though forced to remove to 
another habitation, this animal does not, however, remove to another coun- 
try. Ata little distance from its old burrow, it forms a new one, from 
which it never stirs but at night. The dogs easily overtake it when it is at 
any distance from its hole, and then, using all its strength, and all its pow- 
ers of resistance, it throws itself upon its back, and defends itself with 
-desperate resolution. It has one single advantage over its assailants. The 
skin is so thick, and especially so loose, that the teeth of the dogs can make 
little impression on it, and the badger can turn himself round in it, so as to 
bite them in their tenderest parts. 
The young badgers are easily tamed; they will play with young dogs, 
and, like them, will follow any person whom they know, and from whom 
they receive their food; but the old ones, in spite of every effort, still remain 
wild. They are neither mischievous nor voracious, as the fox and the wolf 
are, yet they are carnivorous; and though raw meat is their favorite food, 
yet they will eat any thing that comes in their way, as flesh, eggs, cheese, 
butter, bread, fish, fruit, nuts, roots, &c. They sleep the greater part of 
their time, without, however, being subject, like the mountain rat or the 
dormouse, to a torpor during the winter; and thus it is that though they 
feed moderately, yet they are always fat. 
Their hole they keep exceedingly clean, nor are they ever known to void 
their ordure in it. The male is rarely to be found with the female. In 
summer she brings forth, and her usual number at a birth is three or four. 
These she feeds at first with her milk, and afterwards with such petty prey 
as she can surprise. She seizes young rabbits in the warren, robs birds of 
their young, while yet in the nest, finds out where the wild bees have laid 
up their honey, where field-mice, lizards, serpents, and grasshoppers are to 
the second and third pointed, the fourth cutting on the external side, the fifth tuberculous 
and large; body low ups the legs; pentadactyle; nails robust; tail short; an anal 
pouch, containing a fetid secretion. 
