v THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 1397 
is strikingly marked, the general color, from the 
back of the neck forward, being dark brown, 
broken by a distinct white stripe from the bridge 
of the nose back to the nape of the neck, and a 
somewhat irregular white stripe on each cheek, 
reaching from the corners of the mouth to near 
the top of the ears; below this, on each side, is 
a crescentic, dark-colored patch, separating the 
stripes from the white of the ears and throat. 
These conspicuous markings give to the counte- 
nance an expression of native ability and shrewd- 
ness in the disguise of a painted clown; and they 
set one a-thinking. 
Belonging to the great family of “ fur-bearing” 
carnivores, the Mustelidz, which begins with the 
weasels and ends with the sea-otters, and is related 
to the bears on one side and to the dogs on the 
other, the badgers occupy a midway place in their 
own group, between the skunks and otters, and 
form the subfamily Melinz. Species of this sub- 
family inhabit Europe, Asia, and America, but 
those of the Old World are of different genera 
from ours. Thus, the common badger of Europe, 
well known in Great Britain and elsewhere, is 
Meles vulgaris, and allied species belong to most 
parts of Asia; their habits are much like those of 
the American forms. The small, fetid, burrowing 
teledu, or stinking badger of the mountains of Java 
and Sumatra, is Mydaus meliceps. The sand- 
badger, a large pig-like species of the mountains 
