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MAMMALIA. 



The Badger on the Yorkshire Wolds.— Records have lately been 

 published in the Naturalist of captures of Badgers in Yorkshire. So far the fringe 

 only has been touched. You must go to the Wolds to learn about Badgers, and 

 more especially to Fimber. Fimber is a small village in the parish of Wetwang. 

 To the antiquary it is a place of great interest, as it probably marks the site of the 

 long-lost Delgovitia mentioned in Antonine's Itinerary. It is surrounded by mas- 

 sive entrenchments, and a mile from the village two Roman roads intersect, viz., 

 the one from Malton, by Wharram-le- Street, to Beverley, and the one from York, 

 by Stamford Bridge and Garrowby Street, to Bridlington. Near the cross-roads is 

 a chalk promontory called Fimber Nab, projecting from a network of dales. 

 There is a railway station there now, and you can get your London paper at 

 1 1.20 a.m.; but formerly it was considered, and was, a terribly out-of-the-way 

 place, and a threat of sending anyone to Fimber Nab implied much the same thing 

 as sending a person to Coventry. Possibly, in consequence of the retired nature of 

 the place, it was selected as a fitting home by a gentleman badger and his wife ; 

 and here they bred and multiplied, and, as their sons and daughters grew up and 

 settled in life, colonized the neighbouring woods and dales. Indeed, one of the 

 principal seats of the family is still known as Badger Wood. But an evil time was 

 at hand. The records of the family do not go back as far as the Norman Conquest, 

 though doubtless their ancestors did live then, and probably occupied large 

 territories ; so we pass to their descendants, who flourished and smelt in the 

 year 1830. The first raid made upon them in that year was rewarded with the 

 capture of three fine Badgers in one night, two 'greyhounds' and a 'pig.' You 

 must know that a ' greyhound ' Badger has fine hair, and a smart head, and was 

 probably a sort of ' masher ' in his day ; whereas a ' pig ' Badger' has strong coarse 

 hair, short legs, and a heavy cast of countenance. He is heavy in other respects, 

 too, weighing upwards of two stone. The Badger's hole is good to tell, because he 

 or she is partial to a comfortable bed of grass, and as the grass has to be obtained 

 at some little distance, there is a regular trail of it leading to the hole, and 

 inside. The hole itself is sometimes 5 ft. deep, and extends, with numerous ramifica- 

 tions, for several score yards. A man engaged once in digging out a Badger, had 

 himself to be dug out, for the earth fell in and buried him up to his neck ; mean- 

 while Mr. Badger, with a complacent smirk on his countenance, calmly walked 

 out at a hole 40 yards off. For years together, after the date above mentioned, 

 seven or eight badgers were regularly secured every year. In i860 two Badgers 

 a night were twice obtained, and for the next twenty years one or more were sure 

 to be caught annually. The last of the family was captured in a chalk pit in the 

 daytime in 1880; but though the holes are still numerous, they are, alas ! tenantless, 

 and nothing remains but the smell to prove the glory that has been. 



Sic transit gloria mundi. 

 On the whole it is clear that something like a hundred Badgers have been caught 

 on the Wolds during the last half-century. — E. Maule Cole, Vicar of Wetwang, 

 March 18th, 1886. 



Badgers in Durham. — The following are some of the dates of the captures 

 of Badgers in the county of Durham : — 



In 1840, one was captured at Eastgate, Weardale. 

 In 1880, one was caught in Castle Eden Dene. 



In the summer of 1883, two young ones were caught by cur dogs in the Wear 

 Valley, below Wolsingham. 



One was caught in a gamekeeper's trap (date and situation unknown). 



One was seen in the spring of 1885, in a railway cutting between Tow Law and 

 Crook. — J. W. Linnaeus M. Tristram Fawcett, The Grange, Satley, 

 March 4th, 1886. 



Badgers in Northumberland.— On May 15th, 1885, a Badger was 



seen by Mr. W. White, Low Staples, to enter a stone drain near that place. 

 It was taken from the drain, after much labour, and weighed 22 lbs. The 

 Badger was preserved, and is now in the possession of Mr. Stobbs, Dalton. — 

 J. W. Linnaeus M. Tristram Fawcett, Satley Grange, March 22nd, 1885. 



Naturalist, 



