GIBB : MUSTELID^ OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 



25 



antagonist, and when attacked by dogs, he seldom yields without inflicting 

 summary and terrible punishment on his foes. He possesses the unenviable 

 property, but one common in a greater or less degree to all the weasel family, 

 of emitting an unctuous ill-smelling secretion, but whether he can exercise 

 any voluntary control over this effluvium, cannot be ascertained ; although it 

 is known to be always present to some extent when he is disturbed. In the 

 rural districts, where he is known, and a primitive style of diction and simple 

 mode of speech prevail, the distinctive epithet it " stinks like a hrock,'" is 

 often applied to pu.trescent substances, and objects of offensive odour, as 

 characteristic of Meles Taxus. This singular property is pre-eminently 

 developed in a transatlantic congenerous species, the Skunk, Mephitis varians 

 of North America, — so powerful and penetrating is the noisome and fetid 

 odour which the skunk exhales, that I have felt its offensive intrusion at a 

 distance of 100 paces from where I lay in bed, in a room in wMch both 

 doors and windows were tightly closed. 



The badger is sociable in his habits, and when several individuals are 

 located in one particular district, they are wont to fraternize together and 

 form colonies in which they live in perfect amity one with the other — seem- 

 ingly conscious of their naturally defective powers for rapid locomotion, and 

 the better to secure their common and individual safety, they pitch their 

 colonies in the most retired and secluded retreats. In the deepest recesses of 

 some primeval and densely undergrown wood, or at the base of some rocky 

 gorge, which from their inaccessibility to unwelcome intruders offer a safe 

 asylum, the abodes of the badger may be found, but the greater number of 

 these villages, or well selected retreats are now untenanted ; thus, affording 

 another proof of the slow but perhaps not the less sure extinction of their 

 once busy occupants. On the Eosscastle and Hepburn hills — on the wooded 

 slopes of Biddleston, and in other such places throughout JSTorthumberland, a 

 few individuals may still at times be seen, at others very rarely. The last 

 ever seen in this neighbourhood, were a pair of young ones trapped a year 

 or two ago, in the Duke's Park, in our immediate vicinity. They are pre- 

 served at Huln Abbey, a notable monastic ruin occupied in the middle ages, 

 by Carmelite Friars. The colour of the badger's hair, which is thick, long, 

 and compact, and tapers to a very fine pliable point, is a mixture of grey brown 

 and white. The body is brownish grey, blending with a silvery grey on the 

 sides ; the whole of the under parts, throat, breast, abdomen, legs, and feet, 

 are of a deep brown, approacMng to black. The upper parts of the face and 

 forehead, up to the anterior part of the neck, is cream coloured white ; on each 

 No, 27, June 1. o 



