THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
and is particularly fond of the honey and wax of bees. A hole 
in a hillside or river bank serves it as a den. Here a pair 
live in fair security, coming forth at night to search for such 
small mammals, birds, frogs, insects, etc., as it can catch or 
dig up. In the north of India the natives call it “‘gravedigger,” 
and say it exhumes human corpses; but this charge is false. Its 
great foreclaws enable it to tear ant-hills to pieces, and to ex- 
cavate the subterranean nests of bees, to which it is constantly 
lead by the honey-guide bird. 
“T once had a pet ratel in the Punjab,” writes a British officer, ‘‘which 
used to follow me about the house and garden like a dog, and was perfectly 
tame, although somewhat rough with strangers. It seldom tasted animal 
food, lived on sweetened rice and milk, bazaar sweetmeats, fruits of all sorts, 
but, above all things, was fond of raw eggs, and had one every morning for 
breakfast. It used to play half the day with a wanderoo monkey I was the 
happy possessor of, and would drive away and utterly put to flight a poor 
old doggie of mine who used to try to make friends. A man on the scaffold 
T have no doubt would have laughed to see the beejoo (for such is its name 
among the natives) and the black monkey endeavoring to unravel a hedge- 
hog, an attempt which, I need not say, was never a success. This animal 
has the loosest-fitting skin of any mammal of my acquaintance; it seems 
as if he could be shaken out of his skin, an advantage probably he may be 
thankful for when baited or drawn by dogs, a cruel proceeding I never 
permitted with my Bijou, which naturally became its familiar name.” 
Two related animals of the East are the teludu, or stinking 
badger, a small nocturnal burrower of Java and Sumatra, 
which may eject its dreadful fluid like a skunk; 
and the large, long-snouted, piglike sand badgers 
or balisaurs of northeastern India and Assam. These two 
bring us to the true badger of Europe and eastward,— one 
of the most familiar animals of the Old World. It lives in 
the woods, is nocturnal, omnivorous, and brings forth its young 
in a deep, winding burrow permanently occupied,— three or 
four at a time, born naked and blind, after gestation lasting 
twelve or sometimes fifteen months. Four other species are 
176 
Badgers. 
