292 
VEETEBRATA. 
Though the badger is found throughout all the northern parts of Europe and Asia, it is rather 
a scarce animal everywhere. Its food is chiefly roots, fruits, insects, and frogs, but it likewise 
destroys the eggs and young of partridges and other birds which build on the ground, and 
attacks the nests of the wild bees, which it robs with impunity, as the length of its hair and the 
thickness of its hide render it insensible to the sting of the bee. It lives in deep burrows, which 
it excavates, reposing in them during the day, and going forth at evening in search of its food. 
It chooses the most solitary woods for its residence, is quiet and inoffensive in its manners, but 
Avhen attacked defends itself with a courage and resolution which few dogs of double its own 
size and weight can overcome. It bites angrily, and holds on with great tenacity, which it is 
enabled to do the more easily from the peculiar construction of the articulation or hinge that 
connects its under jaw with the skull, and which consists of a transverse condyle completely 
locked into a bony cavity of the cranium. 
In England and Scotland this animal is rare, but the cruel sport of baiting the badger is still 
practiced. The poor brute is placed inside a kennel or cask, and dogs set at it, who are not unfre- 
quently worsted by the badger, as its bite is terrific, and its skin so tough and loose, and the hair 
so thick, that the bites of the dog do not take full eff'ect. The pleasure of this " sport," as in many 
other diversions of the sporting world, appears to consist in trying whether the dogs or the badger 
Avill be most mangled in a given time. The irritating the badger so as to make him more furious, 
has given rise to a word in jill the dictionaries — that of badgering. 
The badger is not mentioned by Aristotle in his Natural History, and possibly it may not be 
found in Greece, as the ancient language of that country has not even a name for it, and as it is 
less common in the southern than in the northern parts of Europe. Pliny, however, notices it 
under the name of Melis, and various other Roman authors have spoken of it. More recent 
writers call it Taxus^ a name perhaps derived, like other Roman names of northern animals, from 
the German language, in which the badger is called Zachs or Dachs ; in Dutch, Das. 
The female brings forth her young in the early part of spring, to the number of three, four, 
or five ; she continues to suckle them carefully for the first five or six weeks, and afterward 
accustoms them gradually to shift for themselves. When taken young they are easily tamed, and 
become as familiar and playful as puppies ; they soon learn to distinguish their master, and 
show their attachment by following or fawning upon those who feed them ; the old, however, are 
always indocile, and continue solitary and distrustful under the most gentle treatment. 
The badger is hunted in some parts of Europe during the bright moonlight nights, when he 
goes abroad in search of food. The hide, when properly dressed, makes the best pistol frirniture ; 
the hair is valuable for making brushes to soften the shades in painting; and the hind-quarters, 
when salted and smoked, are said to make excellent hams. Bell informs us that he saw dozens 
of badgers at a time hanging in the meat-markets of Pekin : there seems, indeed, no reason why 
it should be inferior to the flesh of the bear, which is universally esteemed by all who have 
tasted it. 
The American Badger measures about two feet and a half from the muzzle to the root of tlie 
tail, which is five inches more. Its snout is less attenuated than that of the European species, 
though its head is equally long ; its ears are short and round, the claws of its fore-feet much 
longer in proportion than those of the common species, its tail comparatively shorter, its frir of a 
quality altogether difii'erent, its colors also very diff'erent, and its appetites more decidedly carniv- 
orous ; the head and extremities alone are covered with short coarse hair ; all the other parts 
of the body are furnished with remarkably soft, fine, silky fur, up^vard of four inches in length, 
and differing only in being rather more sparingly supplied on the imder than on the upper parts. 
This animal, the Carcajou of Buff on, the Taxus Labradoricus of Long's Expedition, the Taxidea 
Carcajou of Gervais, is called Brairo and Siffleur by the Canadians, Mistomcsk and Atvaivteekceoo, 
or the Digging Animal, by the Crees, and Chocartoosh by the Pawnee Indians. Its form and 
habits have been described by Sir John Richardson as follows : 
"The Meles Labradorica frequents the sandy plains or prairies which skirt the Rocky Moun- 
tains as far north as the banks of the Peace River, and sources of the River of the Moimtains, in 
latitude 58°. It abounds on the plains watered by the Missouri, but its exact southern range has 
