V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 1 47 



His principal food, nevertheless, consists of the 

 ground-squirrels, gophers, and field-mice among 

 which he lives. It is beyond his ability to chase 

 and catch these nimble fellows, for the badger is 

 slow and clumsy ; but it " is the work of a very 

 few minutes for this vigorous miner to so far en- 

 large their burrows that it can reach the deepest 

 recesses." 



Right here an interesting point may be con- 

 sidered. Where the prairie-dogs and other sper- 

 mophiles are especially numerous (and they exist 

 in countless thousands in certain districts of the 

 Great Plains, Columbia Basin, and southern Cali- 

 fornia), there badgers gather in corresponding 

 numbers, attracted by the abundance of food ; and 

 they must often encounter one another, as well as 

 the coyote, kit-fox, ferret, and other raiders, bound 

 upon the same bloody quest. To this contingency 

 the curious pattern of coloring on the badger's face 

 seems to bear direct reference, if the speculations 

 of the natural-selectionists have any basis in fact ; 

 but I am not aware that this point has been men- 

 tioned by Poulton or other exponents of the phi- 

 losophy of animal coloration. Let us examine it. 



The only part of a badger visible when it is sit- 

 ting in the mouth of its burrow, as it likes to do, 

 or is threading its way through some underground 

 passage, must be its face. Now this is the only 

 part of the animal that bears any distinctive color- 

 mark, the remainder of the body being simply 



