Se 
NOTES QF CHANGES AMONG ANIMALS IN FYLING- 
DALES, NORTH-EAST YORKS., WITHIN THE 
LAST FIFTY YEARS. 
J. W. BARRY. 
Fylingdales. 
MAMMALIA. 
The Badger has much increased in numbers and also in 
range of late years. This is doubtless from the protection it has 
received on this estate. It has bred in the woods about a 
quarter-of-a-mile from the house ever since I remember, though 
the fact was not generally known until recently. In 1903, the 
Badgers there had become so numerous and, in one part, had so 
mined the side of the ravine with their burrows that I feared 
landslips. At the same time they had spread widely in the 
neighbourhood and began to annoy the farmers, one of my 
cottagers losing the whole of the cabbages in his garden 
through them. Under these circumstances it was necessary to 
make a thinning. Five were trapped, and not long afterwards 
the landslip which I chiefly feared took place, apparently 
exterminating all that were left in that spot. The rest seem to 
have scattered ; but this year a pair or two have re-appeared in 
the same woods. 
About twenty-three years ago, the somewhat unusual circum- 
stance occurred of finding and catching a Badger asleep in 
broad daylight. This was by my then steward in an open part 
the woods. The Badger was a young one, of course. My 
gardener, who has seen a good deal of them (as for many years 
he did my gamekeeping), has only seen them two or three 
times when the sun was well up. He says, however, that, ina 
great number of instances, the Badgers lie not at the bottom of 
their holes but near the entrance, as he has heard them bolting 
on his approach. Elsewhere they have generally discovered 
him, he has found by scent rather than by hearing. 
Sir C. W. Strickland’s keeper has found that Badgers make 
their raids on wasp’s nests by alternate sallies and retreats. 
When in another situation he once heard a strange cry from 
some unknown animal as if in distress, and saw a Badger 
rolling itself on the ground and trying to free itself from wasps. 
He then saw it go back, evidently to the comb, for it returned 
after a while with a fresh supply of wasps, from which it freed 
itself in the same manner as before. This process was con- 
stantly repeated. 
“1907 September 1 
