V THE BADGER AND HIS KIN 151 



holes, and there ultimately mingled with the earth, 

 is a most important natural process of soil-prepa- 

 ration, equivalent to the farmer's ploughing and 

 manuring. To the influence that fossorial animals 

 have thus exerted must be largely attributed the 

 decomposition of the surface-rock over an exten- 

 sive area of the plains, and its change into good 

 soil, highly fertile wherever water is obtainable in 

 suitable quantity. The spread, growth, and decay 

 of plants would accomplish much, and is, perhaps, 

 the chief agency in the production and enrichment 

 of earth ; but crumbling rock-sand would be very 

 slowly enriched by such a plant-growth as the 

 short, dry, and sparse herbage of the plains af- 

 fords, were it not continually exposed to the chem- 

 istry of the air, mixed with vegetable and animal 

 manure, and pulverized, by these precursors of 

 agriculture. 



Little is known of the reproduction of the badger. 

 Godman tells us that three or four young are born 

 in summer, and that the period of life may reach 

 fifteen years. In the United States the animal is 

 more or less active all winter, being able to search 

 out or dig out enough sleeping ground-squirrels, 

 marmots, etc., in spite of the frost, to satisfy its 

 needs if not its appetite. Farther north, however, 

 the greater cold and enforced famine induce or 

 compel it to pass in semi-torpidity the more severe 

 months of winter. 



Year by year the range of this animal is nar- 



