MAMMALIA. 37 
soiled white colour. This pale colour passes in the form of a band round the cheek and 
over the eyes, A dark mark includes the eye and cheek, on each side, and there is also a 
mark of a similar colour between the eyes, continued from the forehead. ‘The dark colour 
is produced by a mixture of grey, dark-brown and black hairs. The back is grizzled, its 
fur consisting of dirty white hairs, ringed with black. The belly is considerably paler. The 
tail is bushy, like the brush of a fox, and has adirty white colour, with about six dark rings 
round it. The extremities are short, and all the feet have five toes, armed with long, strong 
claws, fitted for burrowing. There is a fulness of the skin on the flanks, which adds to the 
apparent shortness of the limbs. The animal walks on the hind and fore toes, but when it sits, 
brings the whole hind sole to the ground, and it often assumes an erect posture like a Bear. 
Carver quaintly describes the Raccoon as having the limbs of a beaver, the body of a 
badger, the head of a fox, the nose of a dog, the tail of a cat, and sharp claws, by which it 
climbs trees like a monkey. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Feet. Inches. Feet. Inches, 
Length of head and body . 5 2 0 Length of tail (vertebre) 0 : 0 : 
oa head ‘ ° : : 0 6 Height of the back . 4 : “ 1 1 
[12.] 1. Meres Lasraporia. (Sabine.) American Badger. 
Genus. Meles. Brisson. 
Carcajou. Burron, tom. vi. p. 117, pl. 23. (édit. de Paris en 36 vol. 1749-1789.) Quadrupédes enlum. 295. 
Common Badger. PENNaNT’S Arctic Zoology, vol.i. p. 71. 
Badger var. 6. American. PENNANT’s Hist. Quadr., vol. ii. p. 15. 
Ursus Labradoricus. Lin. GmMELtn, vol. i. p. 102. 
Prarow. Gass’s Journal, p.34, 
Blaireau. Lewis anp CLarKkeE’s Voyage, &c. vol. i. pp. 50, 137, 213. 
Taxus Labradoricus. Say, Long’s Exped., vol. i. p. 261. 
Meles Labradoria. SaBine, Franklin’s First Journ, p. 649. Harian’s Fauna, p. 57. 
American Badger. GopMman’s Nat. Hist., vol.i. p. 179. 
Blaireau d’Amérique. F. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Mamm. cum figura. 
Brairo et Siffeur. Frencu Canapians. 
Naunaspache-neeskeshew. Mistonusk, (also awawteek@oo, ‘* the animal that digs.”) CreE Inprans. 
Chocartoosh, PAWNEEs. 
Puate 2. 
Buffon, in the body of his great work, doubts whether the Badger be an 
inhabitant of the American continent, notwithstanding that M. Brisson had 
