The Badger: A Monograph

by Sir Alfred E. Pease

The second peculiarity arises from a high ridge of bone, standing straight up and running from the base of the skull to between the ears, giving a firm hold to the ligaments and tendons, and an additional leverage and length, which are again rendered more effective by passing over the high cheek-bones as over a pulley before reaching the jaws. There is a saying that "a badger never leaves go till he makes his teeth meet," and there is a foundation of truth in it. The length of time he will hold on to the limb of an enemy is certainly fearful, and the way in which his thick strong canines go through the bone. On one occasion, in Wales, a keeper residing near the place I was staying at thought he saw the badger's tail at the end of a badger-digging, and laid hold of it to draw him. He had made a terrible mistake, and had got hold of a hind-foot. The badger held him by the wrist for ten minutes with his arm stretched up the hole; when he let go his hold the hand was hanging by a few shreds, and had, of course, to be amputated. I have always drawn a badger when possible by the tail, as the use of the tongs is sometimes difficult, especially in certain holes and at great depths, and there is a liability for the tongs to give way, and then the badger charges in your face or through your legs. I have seen a badger's teeth break and fly off in chips from iron tongs, a sight and sound that is not pleasant. To one who knows how to do it, drawing by the tail is a simple, quiet, and effective way of "taking the brock."

A badger has the proverbial nine lives that John Chinaman attributes to women and we to cats. You cannot kill a badger by a blow on the head, the structure is so dense. His brain is so well protected by the ridges of bone along his skull and over his eye-sockets, and by the strength and projection of his cheek-bones, as to make him all but invulnerable in that quarter. His skin is so thick and tough, and his coat so heavy and coarse, that shot will scarcely penetrate it; but he has one place as tender as a nigger's shins, and that is his nose, where, if he is struck once, he is instantly dispatched. I was witness of a scene in the hunting field with the Cleveland hounds during the mastership of the late Mr. Henry Turner Newcomen, which, however disgusting, illustrated the vitality of the badger. We thought we had run a fox to ground in a drain. The terriers were sent for, one was put in to bolt him, but after a quarter of an hour's attempt he came out, having given it up, with severe marks of punishment. One that could be depended on was then dispatched to ground, and digging operations commenced. As time went on we thought from the sound that it could not be a fox, and presently there was a charge down the drain, and a badger came bouncing and floundering out among the crowd of bystanders, the terrier holding on to him. The other terriers, barking furiously to join in the fray, excited the hounds in an adjoining field; they broke out past the whips, and nineteen couple were soon at the badger, who was entirely lost to view in the struggling and worrying mass. But he was plying his jaws all the time, as was evidenced by the howls of pain from the wounded hounds as they withdrew from this unaccustomed entertainment. The whips and others did their best to flog the hounds off, but this was not accomplished for at least ten minutes. After much bloodshed, and when the last hound had been choked off, the badger showed neither scratch nor wound, and looked as fresh as possible. Mr. Newcomen ordered a whip to despatch him and end the tragedy. The whip clubbed a weighted hunting-stock, striking him several smashing blows on the head, and left him apparently dead. A farmer having asked if he might have him to stuff, put him in a sack and carried him off. A few days later I met the farmer, Mr. R. Brunton, of Marton, and he told me that when he got home the badger was as lively as ever, so he put him on a collar and chain and fastened him to a kennel. The day following he thought, from the appearance of the badger, that he was hurt about the head, and with some difficulty examined him, and found that the lower jaw was injured. He thereupon got a revolver and fired a shot into his ear, and then he assured me the badger only shook his head. He was so taken aback that for a moment or two he thought of giving up the attempt to kill him, but firing a second ball into him behind the shoulder he put an end at once to the poor brute's sufferings.

The badger, as I have said, is becoming very scarce in England, and is decreasing in numbers in France and other countries as well. There are, however, several English and Welsh counties where in woodlands he still is to be found in considerable numbers, and some districts where they are common enough. The badger is fairly plentiful in many parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Hants, and Gloucestershire, along the Welsh border, and in Mid and South Wales. It is to be found also in Sussex, Wilts, occasionally in Surrey and Kent, and here and there through the Midland and home counties. It is becoming rare in the north of England, but still lingers in the North Riding of Yorkshire, chiefly in the districts of the hills and moors between Scarborough and York. In Lincolnshire it is to be found in places; it is extinct in Durham, and practically so in Northumberland, where within fifty years it was common enough.

A Northumberland gamekeeper of my father's has told me he knew it in the Kyloe Craggs and the Howick Woods, and remembered his father taking him to see their dog tried at a badger near Belford. In none of these places are they to be found now. In my own district of Cleveland they were in 1874 all but extinct. I remember as a boy two were caught in our neighbourhood, one in Kildale and one at Ayton; but in 1874 I had three young badgers sent me from Cornwall, dug out by one of my uncles, and these I turned out in my father's coverts, and secured for them the keeper's protection. Since then they have, with a few later introductions, held their own, and a few years ago I knew of nine badger "sets" in the vicinity, and some five on our own ground; but I regret that the hands of neighbours are against them.

In Scotland the badger is now rare. In the north-eastern counties, where till recently he was to be met with in every wild woodland and forest district, he has entirely vanished. In Ross-shire and in the west he is occasionally found in places where the wild cat and marten are making their last stand against the keeper and his exterminating engine, the steel trap. In Ireland the badger is still found in the Wild West. I have come upon him in Connemara, near the Killery harbour, and have heard of him in Kerry and other counties.

As to the distribution of the badger in Ireland I quote the following interesting letters from the Field:—

"'Lepus Hibernicus' may be glad to know that the badger is still fairly common in the neighbourhood of Clonmel. The country people, who know them better under the name of 'earth-dogs,' in distinction to 'water-dogs,' or otters, not unfrequently catch them in one way or another, and offer them for sale. Fortunately for the badger the demand is extremely limited."—Badger (Clonmel). "Permit me to coincide with 'Lepus Hibernicus' respecting the plentifulness of the badger in Ireland. Some years since I was on a large estate in Co. Clare, and badgers were abundant on the domain and the adjoining property; I also found them numerous in the wilds of Galway. I have found and killed them in many parts of England and Wales, but have seen and trapped far more in the west of Ireland."—J. J. M. "Your correspondent, 'Lepus Hibernicus,' in the Field of November 5, mentions that badgers are by no means uncommon in Ireland. I am in the west of Cornwall, and there are any amount here, a great deal too plentiful to please me, as I am sure they do a lot of harm to rabbits and game. I found the parts of a fowl in a field, evidently killed by a badger, as there was a trail not a foot away, and also a hole scratched, which could be the work of none other than a badger. I had two very big ones brought to me alive last week. They were caught by setting a noose of thin rope in their run. I should like to know a good way to exterminate them, as, though I shoot over a great deal of ground, I have never seen one out in daytime, but their trail is everywhere."—H. J. W. "The badger is by no means rare in the west of Clare, where I have trapped several."—A. H. G. "I beg to inform 'Lepus Hibernicus' that badgers are by no means scarce in this place."—A. R. Warren, Warren's Court, Lisarda, Cork. "The badger in this part of the Co. Cork is certainly not rare—Owen, Sheehy, Coosane, and Goulacullen mountains, with the adjoining ranges, afford shelter to a goodly number. Farm hands occasionally capture unwary ones, and offer them for sale as pets, or to test the mettle of the national terrier, or to be converted into bacon. A badger's ham is often seen suspended from the rafter of a farmer's kitchen."—J. Wagner (Dunmanway, Co. Cork).

The counties in which I have had most acquaintance with the badger have been Radnorshire, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Cornwall, but perhaps most of my experience has been gained in the last-named county, as far as digging for him is concerned; whilst it is at home in Cleveland that I have watched him for nearly twenty years, and gained some knowledge of his mode of life and habits. I am not sure whether there are not a few still left in the Cheviots and the districts of the Upper Tyne and Tweed. Up till about 1850 they were to be found on the Cleveland hills, or rather on their wooded sides and in the "gills." The last place where I heard of them being hunted was in the ravine and woods of Kilton.

A badger's earth or warren is properly and generally called a "set" or "cete." They vary in respect of size, number of entrances, depth of galleries, and choice of site almost as much as rabbit-holes. Sometimes badgers will find sufficient room in rocks to make a home, and it is extraordinary the excavations they occasionally make in apparently solid rock. Usually, however, they select some softer material in which to make their underground passages and chambers. They will choose a quiet hillside away from man's habitation, amongst the whin bushes, or in the woods near a stream or small runner of water. Such a "set," if long established, will penetrate through earth, clay, and sub-soil, to some stratum of shale, or sand, or loose rock. Some of the galleries and chambers will be at a great distance from the surface, and some at an enormous depth. When a new earth is made I have always found the badger appropriate the holes of rabbits, and proceed to excavate, enlarge, and open them out. This operation of opening a new earth takes place constantly in the spring-time, great masses of material being thrown out; but as often as not the new house is abandoned before completed, and the subsequent labours of the family are devoted to repairing, enlarging, and making new front or back doors to the old place. In Cornwall I once tried my hand with my brother, some strong Cornishmen, and a team of terriers, at a very innocent-looking badger "set" situated in a level field. There were but three holes, and these not very far apart. The farmer told us that there had been badgers there all his life, and no one had ever been able to dig one out. This rather stimulated us than otherwise, and we had in the course of a few hours dug a trench some six feet deep, and were nearing the sounds of the subterranean conflict, which had been sustained by the terriers, when suddenly we found that we were above the sound, and we sank a shaft down three feet from the bottom of our trench, to find galleries and chambers in all directions. The battle had by this time moved, and we were in despair at the prospect of following on the level with a depth of nine feet of surface soil to be lifted in every direction we turned. I was listening at the bottom of the trench, having penetrated to the third storey of this underground barrack, when I distinctly heard the "bump-bump" of the badger below me. My companions came down and listened too, and there was not the slightest doubt that there was a fourth storey and labyrinth of passages some three or four feet below us, and for anything we knew another beyond. The day was far spent, the task was impossible, and the rest of our time was devoted to getting the terriers out, and making as good a retreat as we could before the victorious enemy.

I should think this "set" was hundreds of years old, and some of the passages, the farmer told us, were a hundred yards long! As a rule a badger's hole descends rapidly at first, and then may branch into any number of by-ways and subterranean galleries. Whichever route you follow, however, you invariably come to a chamber or "oven," which is generally a sort of vaulted hall, where four ways meet, and which is, or has been, the living-room of the family at some previous time. Where there is an old-established "set" it is difficult to drive the badgers permanently away from it. They may leave it for a while from fancy, or because of disturbance, but they will certainly return.