134 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
encountering three at once in the Adirondacks, and 
Audubon and Bachman had one or two personal in- 
terviews in the South; but these were naturalists and 
trappers who made it their business to seek and 
find the sly creature in its haunts, yet succeeded 
rather by perseverance and good luck than by 
foresight. Many have tried equally hard, perhaps, 
and have failed. 
I know where one lives, in a little river not far 
from the city of New York; but I shall by no 
means tell you the river's name, for he must not 
be disturbed. It is a great pleasure to me to think 
that this stream, which for a large part of its 
course flows between cultivated fields, is spanned 
by highways and bound like Ixion to the miller’s 
wheel, still harbors an animal so truly wild and 
aboriginal. It is a picturesque and poetic relic of 
the prehistoric wilderness, and a romantic reminder 
of the free, primitive, savage state of things, as 
refreshing to the imagination as the pungent odor 
of spruce-leaves in a winter drawing-room. 
A more remarkable example, perhaps, of an 
animal that secretes itself well from observation 
while numerous throughout its range is found in 
the badger. Although it is comparatively large, 
predatory, and common, it spends most of its time 
underground, rarely comes abroad except during 
the hours of darkness, and makes haste to hide 
itself the moment it detects the approach of any 
human being. The sight of a living badger is 
