38 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
described a small quadruped from New York, under the name of Meles alba*. 
Brisson’s animal, according to M. Desmarest, proved to be merely an albino 
variety of the Raccoon {; but Buffon afterwards, in the first addition to his 
article on the Glutton, described the skin of a true Badger, which he received, 
it is said, from Labrador, under the misapplied name of Carcajout. His 
specimen was imperfect, having only four toes the fifth having been rubbed 
off, as he supposes, in stuffing ; and Gmelin, who adopted the opinion of 
Schreber in considering it to be a distinct species from the European Badger, 
carelessly allowed “ palmis tetradactylis’” to form part of the specific character. 
Shaw pointed out the differences between the two species more perfectly, 
and his observations have been confirmed and extended by Mr. Sabine, who 
described a specimen, obtained on the plains of the Saskatchewan by Captain 
Franklin’s party. Kalm says that he saw the common Badger in Pennsylvania, 
where it is known by the name of the Ground Hog§. I suspect, however, that 
there is some mistake in his observation, because recent American naturalists do 
not mention it as an inhabitant of that state ; and the appellation of Ground 
Hog is applied by the country people to the marmots and several other animals that 
have the habit of burrowing in the earth ||. If there be, indeed, a true Badger on 
the Atlantic coast, it must differ in habits, and be perhaps a distinct species from 
the one described by Mr. Sabine, which inhabits a district of country very different 
in character. For the same reason, I have some doubts of Buffon’s specimen 
having come from Labrador §]. The Blaireaux, seen by Lewis and Clarke on the 
plains of the Missouri, are doubtless specifically the same with those of the ad- 
joining and similar Saskatchewan country; and even the Brairo, which the same 
travellers describe as an inhabitant of the open plains, and sometimes of the 
woods, of Columbia, presents no character, in their account of it, which denote 
it to be distinct from the Saskatchewan animal, except the curious and perhaps 
accidental circumstance of a double nail, like the Beaver’s, on one of the toes of 
each hind foot. 
The Meles Labradoria frequents the sandy plains or prairies which skirt the 
Rocky Mountains as far north as the banks of the Peace River, and sources of 
* Brisson, Regne An., p. 255. 
+ DesmareEst’s Mamm., p. 168 and 174. 
t The name of Carcajou belongs properly to the Wolverene. 
§ Kaxm’s Travels, vol. i. p. 189. 
|| Gass, indeed, in noticing the Badgers of the Missouri, says that they are about the size of aground hog, and 
nearly of the same colour.—Gass’s Journal, p. 34. 
q Buffon says “ qu’il venoit du pays des Esquimaux,” but in fact it may have been brought actually from the banks 
of the Saskatchewan by some of the Canadian fur hunters. 
