Sir Alfred E. Pease

“ 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. ”

“ Gradually, as the daylight fades, one after another of the singers becomes silent, the sounds of day are hushed, and a perfect silence reigns in the twilight amidst the trees. Without any warning we are conscious of the clean black-and-white face of an old badger over the earthwork outside his hole, and presently he is all in view, sitting with bowed fore-legs and his head turning on his lithe outstretched neck, scenting the night air. ”

“ No matter how game a dog is, if he cannot follow the badger he is useless. He must above all be full-mouthed, sharp-tongued, and ready to keep his voice going for hours together. He must be absolutely true, or he may make a fool of you, and lie fast in the earth baying an imaginary foe, or barking and scratching to get up a small rabbit-hole. Beware of a terrier that will think of such vermin when employed to fly at much higher game. They are worse indeed than useless, and often have I been driven nearly wild by being persuaded to allow some man proud of his terrier to let him go. ”

“ Whilst the terrier for badger should be game to the death, it is all-important that he should mingle discretion with his valour, and not drive his superior foe to desperation, but content himself with keeping him at bay, only using his teeth at a pinch and in extreme cases. Tell me, reader, how many terriers you know who can or will go to ground, stay there, tell the truth always, pass through every place a badger can, keep his head under the most exasperating circumstances, and come up smiling and eager after every round, no matter how much punished? ”

“ In idea nothing could be more delightful than to sit in the deepening twilight of a summer's evening, with a soft breath of air stirring the feathery larch tops against the sky above, the ground carpeted with the vivid green of the opening bracken, surrounded by the music of cooing wood-pigeons, the full notes of blackbird and thrush, and listening to the pleasant sounds carried on the breeze from the distant farms. ”

“ If you move you have seen the last of them for the night, but if you succeed in being perfectly still they will recover sufficient confidence to sally forth again, but will take off quickly in different directions for their night's ramble. Then at last we may raise our stiff limbs and turn our steps through the dark woods, leaving the fox and badger to their devices, and once more frightening the rabbits which flash past us as we wade homewards through the grass heavy and wet with dew. ”

“ But let not ingenuous youth think that to enjoy the sport all he has to do is to take a spade and any reputable terrier. He might as well try, like Dame Partington, to stop the rising tide with a mop! Before so serious an enterprise as a badger digging be undertaken, the wise man will see to it that all the materials are ready, and let him be sure that he has the first necessity—the stout heart to go through with a tough job when once started. ”

“ To understand and appreciate all sides of the badger's character you must see him in war as well as at peace; and such knowledge has to be purchased by great labour and [9] bodily fatigue. In the name of sport, as in the name of liberty, great crimes are often committed. There are those who look upon hunting of all sorts as cruel and degrading, and cannot understand the pleasures of a chase involving the distress of pursuit or pain to any animal. I have a certain sympathy for such sentiments, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, my very love of animals increases my passion for hunting them. ”

“ From my boyhood all wild animals have had for me an intense fascination, and though in later years my hunting-grounds have been for the most part in other countries and continents, and among larger game, I doubt if any of the beasts whose acquaintance I have thus made has been a source of greater interest to me than the badger. The charm of an animal for man, where the sporting is the master instinct, appears to be measured by his capacity to elude observation and defy pursuit ”

“ He loves to sleep and meditate in peace for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. He lies not far within his entrance hall during the spring and summer, and on a hot day he will sometimes come to the mouth of his hole. In the evening, in June or July, he will come outside, sit looking into the wood or shuffle round the bushes, stretch himself against the tree-stems, or have a clumsy romp with his wife and little ones; and when the daylight dies he will hurry off, rushing through the covert for his nightly ramble. ”

“ Every snap, haunch, grunt, groan, and yell in the fight is heard. A favourite's life in the balance! The prize in view! The other terriers are tugging at their chains, frantic to join the fray, yelling fit to split their throats. It is maddening for them to see the dust and commotion [90] in the trench, to hear the sound of battle so near, to wind the enemy, to hear the cry of their fighting and perhaps wounded companion, and not to be allowed to share in the glory of the final action. ”

“ Badger-baiting, it seems, was the price the race had to pay for its existence, and with the happy disuse of a brutal sport the harmless badger has been doomed to extinction. The only method by which any British wild animal can be preserved from extinction in this age of what is termed progress, is to hunt it. Who can doubt, that if fox-hunting and otter-hunting were stopped to-day, both these creatures would be extinct within the next few years? ”

“ What thousands of little curs there are called terriers, and fox-terriers that will no more go down a fox-earth than go up a chimney! How many thousands of the best of these, however finely shaped for the show-bench, that have no more idea of their profession and the duties for which nature made them, and from which they derive their name, than the man in the moon, and whose masters [103] are satisfied if they can kill a few rats, and think them wonderfully game if they will tackle a cat! ”

“ I have often been defeated by their being able to penetrate more quickly than even a gang of men with pick-axe, spade, shovels, and crowbar could follow. And it is safe to say that as long as a terrier is not up to the badger, the badger is not only advancing quicker than the men (if his earth is on a hill-side) , but has also, in nine cases out of ten, barricaded his retreat and scored a victory. I have known a badger, left for awhile by the terrier, bore his way straight up out to daylight and escape. ”

“ Delightful as is the enjoyment of the confidences of Nature in her most hidden solitudes, the pleasure has its price, and the angler on a summer's eve can sympathize [5] with the man who sits over a badger earth. ”

“ The intelligent and unprejudiced wearers of velveteen, who, with the tacit consent of their masters, have by means of the steel trap, flag-trap, and gun, exterminated and banished for ever the most interesting of our animals and the most beautiful of our birds, have hitherto failed in their ruthless attempt to rid earth and heaven of everything but furred and feathered game, so far as the badger is concerned. ”

“ I look into his room the following day, and find him in his night-shirt busy extracting the tail-bone from his trophy, and he stops in his work only to ask when the hounds will be out again.
The power of enjoying hunting of any sort is no evidence of want of tenderer feelings. It may be that the days of sport are numbered by the exigencies of what is termed the progress of civilization; but whether men's hearts will be braver, their bodies and minds healthier, or their natures kindlier and happier for the change, only time may show. ”

“ On one occasion a man brought a fine half-grown cub to my house which he had picked up dead in the road he came along. It was bitten most severely through and behind the shoulder, and I at once remarked to a friend that was with me, 'That is the work of a badger.' On going down to an earth where I knew there was a natural litter, we found tracks of a badger all about the place, as if he had been hunting the cubs. ”

“ Being the less and weaker animal, all a fox does is allowed on sufferance. My suspicions of a badger's capability to wage war on foxes were first aroused some years ago. The badgers had made a fine double set of earths on the north side, of a hill in a neighbouring larch wood, where no effort on my part to get foxes to breed and stay had succeeded. No sooner, however, was a colony of badgers established than foxes haunted the holes and covert. In a succession of years there was as certain to be a litter of fox cubs in the badger earth as a sunrise on the morrow. ”

“ Once in the shadow of the firs, softly treading we come up-wind to the badger "set." Here we choose a place among the larch stems which gives us a good view of the most-used entrances to the earth, some fifteen yards from the nearest hole. We turn up our coat-collars, draw our caps over our faces, and settle ourselves in such positions as will least try our patience and muscles during the hour in which we must remain immovable. ”

“ Nothing can be more exasperating than when, after several hours of heavy labour and straining effort, whilst the proud owner stands smiling by and boasting the merits of his nailing dog, you at length reach the scene of all the disturbance to see a dirty little brute scratching his feet to tatters, frothing at the mouth, and wow-wowing to get up a three-inch rabbit-hole.
An authority in the Gentleman's Magazine recommends collars of bells being attached to the terriers to make the badger bolt, and states that broad collars of badger-skin save their necks. ”

“ The sportsman may pity the sinking fox, with every desire to see the victory of the straining pack, in the moment when, after gallantly standing up before hounds, a straight-necked veteran finds he has shot his last bolt, and turns with fire yet in his eye to meet death in its swiftest form. ”

“ Happier than man, he lives his life, whether longer or shorter, free from the worries, cares, and the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. The fox's life is free as air. Protected for the most part from the natural consequences of his marauding disposition, fair play is given to him to avoid the punishment he deserves by the exercise of that strategy, activity, and endurance with which he is so abundantly endowed. ”

“ If, however, you are quick, terrier number two has interrupted master badger as he is at work and lets you know. "It's all right," "Come on," "He's here," "I've got him," "He's got me," "You beast," "Get back," "I'll hold him," and spade and shovel and pick are hard at work again. Backs and arms are aching with lifting at high pressure out of the deep trench. You dig on, blocking the hole as the roof falls in, but every now and then the shovels clear it for a moment to give the dog air. And now the game has shown itself. A terrible charge down the hole sends out the terrier ”

“ I have never willingly or wantonly killed a badger; he has invariably become a pampered prisoner, or been transported to some new home, where some one whom I had interested in his species was prepared to give him protection, and a new start in life. ”