MAMMALIA 39 



Lyne often cross to the Liddell, near Newcastleton. 1 Those 

 which frequent the Wampool occasionally travel to the head 

 waters of the Caldew. The lower reaches of this river are pro- 

 bably too much disturbed to please an Otter. At all events it 

 is never visited by any members of the tribe. Strange to say, a 

 fine old dog Otter of 26 lbs. was run over by an express when 

 crossing the line at Little Salkeld Station, M.R., one morning 

 last October [1891]. Otter skins were in great request at 

 Keswick in 1803. They fetched fourteen shillings each, and 

 were used in the manufacture of hats, perhaps as a substitute 

 for Beaver. 2 



BADGER. 



Meles taxus (Schreb.). 



That Badgers held their strongholds among the Westmor- 

 land hills in prehistoric days is evidenced by the fossil remains 

 which have been found near Kendal. Their descendants long 

 tenanted the ancestral chambers of their race. For sixteen 

 centuries of the Christian era the Lakeland Badgers maintained 

 their footing without having, so far as we know, to resist any 

 organised plan of extermination. It is clear from parish records 

 that in the seventeenth century the dalesmen developed a mur- 

 derous propensity for slaughtering all the wild animals whose 

 presence supplied a charm to their bleak and forbidding moun- 

 tains. Among the species included under a bann of proscription 

 was the poor Badger, which, although apparently better able 

 to resist its enemies than some of the smaller animals, yet ulti- 

 mately succumbed to the devices employed for its extermination. 

 When the war against ' vermin ' broke out, Badgers had their 

 earths in Inglewood Forest and among the mosses of the Solway, 

 no less than in the heart of the Lake mountains. Such place- 

 names as Brockbanks and Brockholes survive in many parts of 

 Lakeland, attesting that Badgers once existed in districts from 

 which all tradition of their former presence has long died out. 



1 Mr. Lindsay once 'dragged ' an Otter on the West Cumbrian Esk. It 

 left that river and raced across country six miles to the Duddon, which it 

 gained in safety. 



2 Observations, chiefly Lithological, p. 59. 



