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A QUEER, quaint, old-world
animal; clumsy in form and bizarre in colouring, timid and shy, shunning
daylight, man and his works, the badger, the largest of our remaining
carnivora, is also one of the most interesting. From its rarity and
secluded habits it is one of the least generally known; indeed people live
for years in its immediate neighbourhood without being aware of the fact,
unless through some accidental occurrence. Once generally distributed over
the whole country, it is even to-day not so uncommon as is often supposed;
although doubtless a decreasing species it can hardly yet be said to be
verging on extinction, and is still to be found, more or less sparsely,
from the North of Scotland to Cornwall and in many parts of Ireland
The badger is classed with
the Ursidac, and in some ways shows considerable affinity to the
bears, as for instance in his great muscular
development, shambling gait, and chiefly in
his plantigrade method of walking with the whole foot, from heel to toe,
upon the ground. The thirty-eight teeth with which his enormously powerful
jaws are armed betray the omnivorous nature of his diet. He measures some
3 feet in length, including the short tail of 5 or 6 inches. His short and
powerful legs and feet are provided with long and strong claws,
particularly the fore-paws. His height is barely a foot, so that with his
long coat he appears to brush the ground. In colour the upper parts are of
a uniform silvery grey, the individual hairs being banded with
blackish-brown and white, the underparts and legs are black, the head
white with a black stripe on each side from the nose over the eye and ear.
A full-grown badger weighs from 20 to
30 lbs., the male being somewhat the heavier. Mr. A. E. Pease, M.P., in
his monograph on the badger,, says that they have been known to
weigh up to about 40 lbs.; but that the heaviest that he had ever weighed
in his own experience scaled over 35 lbs. The jaws are immensely powerful,
the under-jaw, as already remarked by Blasius, being interlocked with the
upper jaw ; the canine teeth of the under-jaw are particularly long and
strong. Under the tail is situated a glandular pouch in which is secreted
a strongly-smelling substance. Opinion seems to be divided as to the use
of this secretion, some holding that the animal derives nourishment from
it during its winter retirement-a view which one is somewhat surprised to
find favoured by Mr. Pease-it seems too much akin to the old belief that
the bear subsisted by sucking its paws in winter, to obtain ready
credence. Von Tschudi, speaking of this belief, remarks simply that it is
false.
Of strictly nocturnal
habits, the badger spends the day below ground in his earth, in the
formation of which he shows perhaps more intelligence than in other
directions. The tunnel is long and deep, and frequently branching, each
terminating in an enlarged living chamber, and each earth having several
exits or bolt-holes. The living-chamber is warmly furnished with dry
grass, moss, leaves and bracken, replaced yearly by fresh material. Mr.
Pease gives an interesting account of the method by which the badger
carries in his bedding, retiring backwards into the earth with the heap of
material gathered into a bundle between his fore-paws and his head. The
badger is often spoken of as solitary in its habits, but this seems to be
erroneous ; he is monogamous and is said to pair for life. Mr. Pease once
enjoyed the singular spectacle of seeing no less than seven full-grown
badgers issuing at night-fall from one earth. Another imputation against
him, that of foul-smelling and unclean habits, is also unfounded. His
earth is usually sweet and clean, the animal retiring when necessary to
some distance from his habitation. There is a tradition, repeated by the
German writers, that the fox is in the habit of evicting his powerful
neighbour from his comfortable abode by means of be-fouling the chamber of
malice prepense ; but this also is groundless fancy, for foxes and
badgers are known to inhabit the same earth; such earths, it must be
remembered, being often very large and with many ramifications. Here,
about the month of March, the young come into the world, according to Mr.
Pease usually two, sometimes three, never more than four in number,
although the German writers say from three to five, and give January and
February as the usual dates ; but locality and climate may account for the
difference.
In the matter of food the
badger is decidedly omnivorous, nothing, almost, seeming to come amiss.
All manner of roots, vegetables and fruits, beetles and insects of all
sorts, reptiles, snakes, young birds, eggs, mice, and the smaller animals
generally, all seem welcome. Honey and wasp-grubs have special attractions
for them as for their distant relative the bear ; and on the continent of
Europe they do at times much damage in the vineyards. In this country
there is no doubt but that young rabbits are a favourite delicacy, and it
may be accounted to the badger for righteousness that he helps to keep
down these ubiquitous pests.
On the whole he may be
regarded as a harmless, if not absolutely a useful animal; but that an
occasional individual may develop abnormal and vicious propensities cannot
be denied. A striking instance of such depravity has come to my knowledge.
A forester living in a remote cottage in the heart of one of our largest
deer-forests had a number of fowls in a rude turf-covered out-house. One
night there was a great outcry among the fowls, and in the morning it was
found that some animal had forced an entry and carried off one or more of
the inmates. The door was made secure, but next night the alarm was
renewed. At daybreak the forester found that the burglar had this time
obtained entrance through the roof, and being unable to return that way,
remained a prisoner. Fetching his gun, he had the satisfaction of slaying
a large badger, caught flagrante delicto. Such cases must, however,
be considered as exceptional, and analogous to that of the squirrel that
has acquired the bad habit of robbing little birds’ nests of eggs and
young, or of the very rare case of a kestrel that has taken to carrying
off young pheasants from the rearing-field; perhaps as protest against
modern unsportsmanlike excesses in artificial game-rearing!
A number of years ago there
was some correspondence in The Field as to the alleged destruction
of fox-cubs by badgers. In the end the question remained undecided as to
whether such cases as had undoubtedly occurred had been the work of some
bad-tempered old badger, or of an old dog-fox of similarly unamiable
character; they could not be attributed to any general habit of the
species as a whole.
It seems to be agreed on
all hands that badgers are a thirsty race and drink much water. The
popular notion that the badger hibernates, as the dormouse, for instance,
does, is incorrect. They spend, indeed, much of the winter in sleep in
their cosy underground chambers, especially in long-continued hard
weather; but the unmistakable evidence of their footprints shows that they
do come forth at no very long intervals.
Although the badger may
sometimes be seen sunning himself just within the mouth of his earth, he
seldom or never issues forth until nightfall, when he goes out on his
rounds after food, returning before daybreak; indeed, if he should
perchance have somewhat miscalculated his time, he comes shambling and
rolling home in a great hurry. One of the means of capturing him is by
means of a sack pegged inside the mouth of his main entrance during his
absence, with a running cord round the mouth of it, secured to a peg. The
badger, being found in his rambles and pursued by dogs, rushes in
precipitately and finds himself a prisoner. From his cunning he is
difficult to catch in ordinary spring traps.
The usual method of
capturing him, at least in the south, is by locating him first in his
tunnel by means of terriers, and then digging down until he is reached—a
work often of much time and toil. If the attention of the badger is not
continuously held by the terriers, he will scrape his way into the earth
faster than the hunters can dig after him. A full account of this
procedure is given by Mr. Pease in the monograph already mentioned. His
captives were not killed but released elsewhere.
In Scotland this method is
seldom very practicable, as our badgers are usually found in rocky ground
or in cairns; or else in earths on a hillside where digging would be too
much like railway-tunnelling to be feasible.
In Germany the Dachshund or
`badger hound' takes the place of our terriers. The German writers speak
of the flesh as eatable; and the fat had, both there and here, a great
reputation as a cure for rheumatism. There used to be, and may yet be, a
very general custom in South Germany of hanging a badgerskin as an
ornament on the harness or collar of farm horses.
Our ancestors had a quaint
belief that the badger's legs were shorter on one side than on the other,
the better to run along a hill-side! The difficulty of the return journey
does not seem to have occurred to them. This story probably had its origin
in the shambling, rolling gait of the animal.
The name badger is said to
be derived from Latin bladarius, a corn-dealer (cf. French
blaireau), from a supposed habit of storing up corn for winter supply.
Sir Herbert Maxwell tells us that in Middle-English Bager meant
corn-dealer. The Scottish name brock is of course the same as the
Gaelic and Irish broc, Cornish and Breton broch, the root
being apparently doubtful. There is evidence of its former wide
distribution in the place-names still extant, both in the Lowlands and,
more rarely, in the Highlands ; as `Brocketsbrae, Brockhole, Brockloch,
Brockwood, Broxwood' in the former; `Garaidh-nam-Broc,' badgers' den, to
take only one example in the latter.
The cruel pastime of
badger-baiting has also left its mark in the English language in the
every-day term 'to badger.'
The badger is found
throughout most parts of Europe and North and Central Asia, south of the
Arctic circle. According to Blasius it occurs in Italy, but not in the
other Mediterranean countries ; its American congener belongs to another
species. In our own country it is still to be found in many districts of
England, Scotland, and Ireland, although in ever decreasing numbers ; it
has apparently never been known in the Scottish Islands. It still exists
as a breeding species, to the present writer's knowledge, in Argyll and
Perthshire. According to Harvie-Brown it is to be found, though
decreasing, in Sutherland; is now quite rare in the North-west Highlands
generally, and in the Moray district. The late Mr. Robert Service, whose
death, since this paper was first written, is greatly regretted by all
Scottish naturalists, sent me the following notes as to the South-west of
Scotland :` At intervals of one or two years-at widening intervals it must
be said-a badger is heard of as being killed at some locality or other in
Solway. It is questionable if these are blood relations of the old
original stock. I believe they are not, but are most probably casual
introductions or casual wanderers from across the Borders. At the Glenkens
end of the Stewartry and in Annandale (upper part at least) there is no
doubt the old native badger remains, though it is to be found in very
meagre numbers indeed. In recent years I have noted their unmistakable
footprints on the shore.' With regard to the Border area the subjoined
notes from Mr. A. H. Evans, whose volume on the Fauna of the Tweed area'
may be further consulted, are of interest:` Badgers are known to occur
still in various parts, notably in the hills near Yetholm, and are not so
uncommon as might be supposed from the scanty notices in print. Badgers
are by no means exterminated in the Borders; they have probably held their
own for the last twenty years without any perceptible increase. Their
chief haunt is the Cheviots.'
For obvious reasons it
would be unwise to define more particularly the existing haunts of this
interesting animal. Is it too much to hope that those who are in a
position to do so will exert their authority and instruct their keepers
and foresters to leave the few remaining representatives of this ancient
British race in peace? |
