v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 135 
therefore an uncommon accident, even where the 
species abounds and its burrows may be seen in 
all directions; and the animal disappears rapidly 
before the advance of any considerable settlement 
in its territory. Audubon and Bachman imply 
that its habitat was always limited by the eastern 
extent of the Great Plains, but the fact is that 
these animals formerly were spread as far east as 
the open country extended, dwelling upon all-the 
prairies of southwestern Michigan, northern Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin (which has been called 
the Badger State since its early days), Minnesota, 
Towa, and northward. Now they have disappeared 
from all this area, and are rare in the easterly and 
more cultivated districts of Kansas, Nebraska, and 
Dakota, where their range ‘is annually withdrawing 
westward. Northward they are found as far as 
the Peace River, and eastward to Hudson Bay; 
so that the fullest early accounts of them were 
given in the writings of Pennant, Richardson, and 
other naturalists who explored the Fur Countries 
years ago. : 
Everywhere the badger is truly a “beast of the 
fields’ — an inhabitant of the open country — dig- 
ging or stealing underground holes, and preying 
upon everything it can catch or conquer. Its body 
is two feet long, extraordinarily low-hung and broad, 
so that the creature appears to be, and perhaps is, 
wider than it is tall; but this effect is partly due to 
the fact that the long fur, which parts upon the 
