426 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 

MAMMALIA. 
The Badger in Norfolk.—An interesting discussion has been run- 
ning in the columns of a county newspaper with regard to the local 
status of the Badger in Norfolk, and several recent dates of ‘‘ occur- 
rences’”’ have been cited in the course of correspondence which certainly 
suggest that its numbers at the present time have been considerably 
underrated. Cromer, Bylaugh (near Hast Dereham), Forncett, and 
Fakenham (near where, one writer declares, ‘‘ four or five have been 
taken this year”) were given as localities, and Mr. A. H. Upcher, 
referring to an instance at Sheringham, writes: ‘‘I know of one or 
two [that] have been trapped there of late, and others trapped: in the 
neighbourhood.” Lubbock (‘ Fauna of Norfolk,’ 1848) mentioned the 
Badger as ‘‘all but extinct with us,” citing one example as being taken 
‘‘about three years back near Holt,” further stating that ‘‘at Honing, 
in the neighbourhood of North Walsham, the Badger was frequent at 
the beginning of this [nineteenth] century.”’ In 1871 Mr. T. South- 
well, writing in the ‘Transactions’ of the Norfolk and Norwich 
Naturalists’ Society, states: ‘‘It is probable that the aboriginal race 
is now extinct, and that those occasionally met with are either 
stragglers or descended from a stock introduced in consequence of 
their usefulness in forming earths for the foxes.” To Mr. Southwell’s 
theory I am much inclined, in disagreement with statements made 
by Mr. Walter Rye, the antiquarian, and some others, who incline to 
believe that the primordial race has never been extirpated. Mr. South- 
well gives in the ‘Transactions’ (1871) records of seven ‘ occur- 
rences’”’ (mostly kills) between 1857 and 1870, the only one in Hast 
Norfolk being obtained in 1868, at Somerton, in the Broad district. 
In 1884 two others are recorded in the same journal. 
It occurs to me that it was partly due to the spurt given to the 
reclamation and culture of waste lands at the time of the Napoleonic 
wars that great efforts seem to have been made towards the extermi- 
nation of this animal, which, but for its nocturnal and secretive 
habits and its marvellous powers of digging, would have been much 
more easily cleared out—at least, as far as Hast Anglia is concerned, 
The Pagets, writing in 1834 (‘ Sketch of the Natural History of Yar- 
mouth’), stated that ‘‘ thirty years ago these were common, especi- 
ally about Bradwell and Browston [villages within five miles of 
