V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 137 



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 Mustelidse, 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 Melinag. 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 Hke 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 



