154 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



iferous niajesty, and thus have taken him out of his 

 proper position in the family just here. So for the 

 present we will give the skunk a wide berth and pass 

 on to his next relative ; this is the badger {Taxidea 

 americana), of the next subfamily Melince, another 

 Western animal, whose eastern limit is Wisconsin and 

 Iowa. It must not be inferred that this animal is 

 one of the swimmers indicated in the heading of this 

 chapter ; he only happens to be sandwiched between 

 the two swimmers by reason of his relationship. He 

 is a burrower. But this incorrigible burrower, whose 

 hole on the Western plains has broken more than one 

 horse's leg and given more than one rider's scalp to the 

 Indians, this miserable, broad -backed beast of secret 

 and unknown habits, is too distinctively Western to 

 command our attention ; still, we vsdll listen to a word 

 about him from Elliott Coues, and then pass on. He 

 says: "I have found badgers in countless numbers 

 nearly throughout the region of the upper Missouri 

 Kiver and its tributaries. I do not see how they could 

 well be more numerous anywhere. In some favorite 

 stretches of sandy, sterile soil, their burrows are 

 everywhere. ... In ordinary journeying one has to 

 keep a constant lookout lest his horse suddenly goes 

 down under him, with a fore leg deep in a badger hole ; 

 and part of the training of a Western horse is to make 

 him look out for and avoid these pitfalls." 



