THE BADGER 



crunching up and eating with the greatest 

 gusto the wasps and grubs, quite undeterred 

 by the thousand angry insects that covered 

 his head and body. In truth, I must admit 

 that while he is thus useful, he has been 

 known to enter a gafden and upset the hives 

 and purloin the honey, being as fond of it as 

 his larger cousins, the bears. 



I must also bring another charge against 

 him. Let me introduce this painful subject 

 by giving the following correspondence from 

 the Field newspaper : — 



" Wilfred writes — ' I shall be obliged if 

 you will allow me to ask your readers whether 

 they have known old badgers to kill fox 

 cubs. Last year our M.F. K. gave a neigh- 

 bouring keeper a litter of cubs. He put them 

 into a natural empty fox-earth, and kept them 

 shut in until they had got fairly on their 

 feed, and were quite at home. When he 

 opened the earth, and allowed them to 

 come out, they played about, and all went 

 well for two or three days, when he found 

 one at a little distance from the mouth of 



the earth dead, with its skull smashed in, 



6s F 



