264 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
forested country gave it the conditions it liked. 
Its general habits, so far as they can be ob- 
served in so shy, secretive and well-hidden a 
creature, are interesting, as I have shown in 
the chapter ‘‘A Badger and his Kin’’ in my 
Wild Neighbors. These cannot be dwelt upon 
here, but they show that none of our small 
mammals has been more misunderstood or 
mistakenly and wastefully persecuted. As a 
result the badger is now restricted in its dis- 
tribution to the arid region, although scattered 
pairs linger here and there even in Wisconsin 
and Minnesota. And yet, its disappearance 
has not been wholly due to reckless destruction, 
for it seems unable to endure the forestation 
and cultivation of lands as they are settled. 
This may be due to the sedentary nature of the 
little beast, which is by no means a wanderer 
or even a traveler. Seton remarks that prob- 
ably a badger never in his whole life goes a 
mile from the home in which he was born. The 
consequence is that when a family has been ex- 
terminated another is not likely to take its 
place. It is for this reason that a man should 
be careful how he wastes the life of a badger 
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