came to an earth close to his house, and from their quarters there they made such
attacks on the wild ducks’ nests as not to leave a sound egg in the vicinity. Yet
these sins of individuals, as in the case of certain hawks, gulls, and rooks, are only
slight errors from the sportsman’s point of view, and not necessarily the natural
habit of every pair of Badgers. The keeper, however, seldom discriminates, and
so the Badger, as a rule, finds little favour in his eyes. A crime, in the eyes
of the foxhunter, is the Badger’s supposed hostility towards fox cubs when the
two animals have formed their homes close together, as they occasionally do. Such
neighbourly quarrels were supposed to have occurred one summer in the large
‘ earths ’ in Epping Forest, when both juvenile Badgers and foxes were found lying
dead outside the holes. But the evidence against either species was purely
circumstantial; and even if the Badger mother had slain one of her neighbour’s
children in a fit of jealous rage, it by no means follows that Badgers make a
practice of attacking fox cubs. In another colony in Sussex where both animals
lived side by side for many years no such internecine warfare has ever been
reported, and many more instances could be cited where the two species have lived
amicably together. There is very little doubt, however, that jealous Badgers do
occasionally commit vulpicide. Young foxes have often been found bitten to death,
but these atrocities are not always traced to the Badgers. An alien dog fox or a
barren vixen will often kill strange cubs of its own species.
Even if the foxhunter can be convinced that the Badger is no vulpicide, he
is none the less irreconcilable. In his eyes the Badger’s greatest sin is quite
indefensible—namely, his digging out of ‘ stopped’ fox-earths—and it is useless to
argue in favour of the harmless night wanderer with those who are already
convinced of its wickedness.1
There is a curious instance of a fox and a Badger being trapped from the
same earth, related in the ‘ Field ’ of May 15, 1886. A keeper, who had set the
traps overnight, found next morning a Badger trapped in one hole and a vixen
fox suckling her young in the other. The fox was released, and seemed none
the worse for her misadventure, but the Badger succumbed a few days after to
paralysis of the tongue.
Badgers generally take very young rabbits, to which they are partial, by
scenting the nest from above ground. They then dig directly down to the spot
where the nest is situated. There are many people still who regard the Badger
as an evil-smelling beast, and foul in his habits. 1 Stinking as a Brock ’ is a
1 In the West of England Badgers are said to injure crops by rolling in the standing com.