THE STUDY OF THE BADGER.
Wii]N Sir Alfred Pease and the present writer compiled The Badger it was emphasized in that work that "it is never sale to say of any wild creatures they always do this or they never do that." It was also pointed out that of all animals the habits of the Badger were least known and most misrepresented by many in successive generations of Naturalists. One after another they have perpetuated at least some of the errors of their predecessors, though the more obvious fallacies—the three long legs and one short one theory, for instance—have not been repeated. Recent well-authenticated evidence has necessitated a certain modification of views even on the part of those who have never written with finality on the life and habits of this most interesting animal. The pity of it is that many of the new students of the " Grey " (as our forbears called him) are in practice by no means friends of the Badger. They are what is vulgarly termed "out for blood," and too often they conjugate the verbs "to kill" or "to capture," together with that "to observe." There are probably many more Badgers in some parts of England to-day than there were, say, forty years ago. Indeed, in portions of the counties of Durham and Northumberland, wherein they had become almost extinct, Badgers are now known to be fairly plentiful. The changing of ownership of estates, the ignorance of gamekeepers, the prejudice of some Masters of foxhounds and their huntsmen, together with the action of local terrier " fanciers " and their spade-carrying com- panions, all threaten the existence of this, the last of our English wild animals. It is to be feared that in our time, and before long, Brock will once more—and for ever— be extinct in certain quarters. Rural England will be the poorer for his passing !
It is interesting tolqiecall how it happened that Badgers came to reinhabit some of their old haunts, where they had been ousted after years of persecution. Sir Alfred Pease, in a recent letter to the writer, repeated the story of the re- Badgering of the North, and his statements are well worth recording for the guidanoe of future historians. He says :— " There wia very few Badgers in Cleveland when I was young, and it is curimis how they have spread in the North Riding and beyond its boundaries into Durham and elsewhere. I protected them and turned some down in the 'seventies and early 'eighties on the Hutton estate.* This may account, at any rate in part, for their spreading, though I think only in part, for there were always Badgers about Helmsley and in that locality, and I believe that though the Hutton Badgers spread E., N. and S.W. as far as Thomaby, those from Helmsley spread N. to Hambleton and Amcliffe districts and possibly to the Tees' banks. The gamekeepers in Cleveland have waged perpetual war on Badgers, even when their masters liked to have them. I am sorry to say gamekeepers do more in destroying rare birds and beasts 'behind their masters' backs' (not to mention Foxes and Badgers) than anyone else. A great many Badgers have been killed lately in Cleveland. A week or two ago five were dug out and killed (old and young) in Newton Wood, and though for 40 years I have always known of settee within half a mile of my house I do not now know of a single earth."
• Hutton lowcross, near Gulsberough, which at that time was owned by the late Sir Joseph Pease. Having hill, moorland and woodland upon it,the district Pat an ideal haven for Badgers.-5. Y. B. A Teesdale Badger authority tells me that forty years ago these animals had become extinct in that part of the country, andit was always a mystery how they reappeared. Their return was first discovered in the woods below Eggle- stone Hall (on the Durham side), and it was then suspected they had come from Cleveland. Then they got down to Baby and were strictly preserved there. Now they are found, he tells me, in every valley in Teesdale, though the largest colony is in Egglestone Woods. They cross to and fro from Yorkshire to Durham by means of Egglestone Bridge, and a year or two ago a policeman got quite a fright by meeting two in the act of leaving one county for the other.
So much for that point. Now we come to another regarding the habits of the Badger. Those who have studied Brock longest have all agreed that he is a pattern of clean- liness both as regards his person and his domicile. So much so, indeed, that many Masters of foxhounds have encouraged the preservation of Badgers because they act as scavengers to the Fox, clean out earths and prevent mange. Let me hasten to say that all Masters of hounds do not agree on this point—the North Durham and Tyne- dale Masters, for instance. Nevertheless, the cleanliness of the Badger and his home, and the fallacy of the old-time Naturalists' statement as to " Greys " having a pungent odour, are indisputable facts. Their burrowing and earth- drawing habits and love for sandy soil, together with the character of their epidermis, probably has much to do with their freedom from vermin, which is also a well-established fact. Indeed, when the Hon. Charles Rothschild, of Tring, was making his famous collection of fleas, I believe it was some years before he succeeded in securing one, though many Badgers were dug out and searched and their "ovens "(as well as the bedding of tame Badgers) carefully examined. However, he did eventually secure a distinct Badger parasite, after (if my memory serves me aright) a reward of £1,000 was offered.
Now we come back to my opening remark quoted in The Badger book, of which I was joint-author, that it is never safe to say of Badgers, any more than other wild creatures, that they always do this or never do that. The following extract from a letter dated "Barnard Castle, May 29th, 1922," and written to me by a careful and sympathetic naturalist, somewhat astonished me :— " A party of us out digging on Saturday last bagged a big boar weighing 25 lb. Strange to say, he was covered with large dog 'ticks,' quite the size of one's thumb-nail. Moreover, the earth (an old Fox stronghold) was quite a foot deep in pure excrement. In all my experience of Badgers I never saw anything like it."
Obviously this was one of the exceptions—it might be a naturally dirty beast, or one in ill-health, or one which was an excommunicate outcast through age, impotence, tem- perament or some other reason. I sent my correspondent's letter on to Sir Alfred Pease, who replied :— " I will not swear that I have never seen excrement in a Badger's earth, but I am sure it is rare and that it is quite excep- tional for Brock to 'foul his own nest.' I suppose, however, there are dirty beasts in every species. As you know, the dwelling-house or ' oven ' is usually dry and, when bedded, not offensive—at worst dirt and litter. Like you, I have searched Badgers in confinement and wild, also their bedding in kennel and in their settee for vermin and I never found anything except once three (1 dog) 'ticks.'" This dirty Teesdale Badger on further inquiry proved to be a very aged one, which may explain the condition of his adopted home, whilst the dog "ticks " are not difficult to trace (though the size is unusual), seeing that in the Zetland hunting country there has been a good deal of indiscriminate " terrier-trying" in recent times. In The Badger the idea of the subject of the monograph killing poultry was rather scouted—always with the reser- vation twice previously quoted. It was not denied that Brock was occasionally carnivorous, for everyone who knows anything about him at all is aware that he will dig down to a nest of young rabbits—directly upon them from above. We know, too, that he will occasionally take eggs, whilst he will spend a good part of a late summer evening turning over heaps of cow-dung in pasture land to find the beetles which collect underneath. Very occasionally I have found traces of rats and mice and the feathers of small birds in Badger pellets, and I have heard of one or two well-authen- ticated cases of his catching, killing and eating wounded (or may be close-sitting "broody ") water-birds. Despite all this, however, I personally have always been inclined to smile rather incredulously at the oft-made allegations that Badgers have destroyed and carried away poultry from the farmyard. The " Grey" so loves secrecy and (as a general though not invariable rule) avoids the haunts of man that it has seemed to me contradictory to his instinct, mode of life, temperament and general habits, of his own free will to come amid barking dogs and the haunts of man to kill "feathered fowl." Within a few days of each other, in May and June last, three Badgers were "caught in the act " ; one was shot with a duck in his mouth as he was leaving the poultry house, another was found in another poultry pen, and a third was followed to his earth by the trail of feathers he left and dug out ere he had completed his meal. Nor is this a mere caprice or degeneracy of Badgers in one par- ticular district where they have acquired a taste for duck and cockerel. One case was in Cumberland (Clea Hall, near Wigton), another was near Cotherstone, in the County of Durham, and the third was near Bath. They are all well authenticated and there have been repetitions in Teesdale since the particular case into which I inquired. Mr. J. S. Helmer, of Barnard Castle, wrote to me recently :— "Last week another Badger was caught visiting chicken coops at Cotherstone. He had been on the previous evening and the farmer sat up and waited for him coming in the moon- light and shot him. On another farm, not half a mile away, the tenant found one in his duck house. He had killed two ducks and was after a third—rather odd this, as Badgers as a rule don't kill merely for killing's sake. I know of a case of a sette not 150 yards away from a farmhouse from which poultry has also been lost and Brock convicted."
Here we have, evidence of Badgers living in close prox- imity to the genus homo and incontrovertible evidence of poultry killing ! The Bath case was equally well authen- ticated and a Badger was actually shot in the suburbs of Bath within the last few months.
Then in March some of us who have studied Brock all our lives were astounded by a report from Merionethshire to the effect that a Mr. John Morgan Jones, Dines Farm (situate on the mountains near the Cymbychan Lake), had some lambs slaughtered and traced a Badger in the snow to a rocky stronghold, at which he waited in patience till the animal came out and shot it—a 25-lb. boar. Inquiries failed to provide further evidence in this case.
Albino Badgers are not altogether unknown. One was caught some years ago near Helmsley (Yorks), and in recent times two have been captured in Cheshire. A cor- respondent informed me that these might possibly be hybrids from some "African Badgers turned down by Mr. Victor Hermon in Cheshire a few years ago." Hearing that one of the albinos dug out by Captain J. Lucas in June last had been sent to the Zoo, I was inclined to make an immediate journey to London, for the subject was of intense interest. However, I once more consulted Sir Alfred Pease, who is the greatest living authority on the Badger, and his interest was as keen as my own regarding the statement as to African Badgers. He replied :— " I should very much like to know what part of Africa the Badgers turned down in Cheshire came from. If substantiated it is, I think, as you say, quite a new zoological discovery. Hitherto the Ratel—a quite distinct species, and I should say quite incapable of hybridizing with the Badger—is the only approach in Africa to the species. There is no real reason why the Badger should not exist m North Africa and the Atlas range. I do not believe that the Badger exists in Algeria or Tunisia. I hunted for years in the Auras and right East far into Tunisia and never heard or saw a trace of them, but there are vast forest regions between the Atlas and the Maritime belt in Algeria and Tunisia and I cannot say if they exist or not ; but it is strange that there is no record of them and that I should never have heard of them."
Lady Arthur Grosvenor kindly inquired from Mr. Victor Hermon as to the importatioa of African Badgers story, and it has turned out purely local fiction. Many, if not most, of the Cheshire Badgers are sandy coloured, which possibly lends itself to,an albino occasionally. Even though one alters one's ideas as to the Badger a little as time goes on and as fresh facts come to light, those of us who have loved this interesting aristocrat of the woodlands, studied him and protected him, learn to have a deeper affection for him and to regret his passing—which seems inevitable.
J. FAIRFAX-BLAKEBOROUGH.
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