COUNTRY LIFE
RECENTLY I was invited to take part in a badger " hunt." The sport in this locality takes the form of perching in a tree with a gun loaded with number four or heavier shot and waiting by moonlight for Brock to appear. The game is nothing but murder and would be so whatever the quarry, short of man-eating tigers. One exponent of this form of assassination has, I am told, many doormats made from the badger's skin. In the moonlight the aim of the best shot cannot be relied upon. Worse than this is the fact that cartridges loaded with the heaviest shot are not to be had in every ironmonger's shop and the unfortunate beast is often wounded but not killed. I think too much of the badger as a useful animal to lift a hand against him, and it appals me to hear of the way he is treated when he is bottled in his hole. Terriers are sent down to worry him and the whole thing becomes as brutal as bear-baiting. I have always been pleased to see the work a badger does among the wasps and I am convinced he does much more that is useful but less evident. Some farmers insist that he takes a fowl and does wanton damage, but compared with the fox he is inoffensive, plodding his rounds at night, grubbing and snuffling after the creatures that destroy a great deal of the fruits of a farmer's labour.
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