of weasels being seen fighting near here, so engrossed that they almost allowed a man to put his foot on them ; of a troop numbering ten in company in one of my meadows ; and of a weasel being chased by a rabbit out of my wood, far out on to a ploughed field. A friend (in Oxfordshire) told me that his keeper recently found in a ' Wonder ' wire trap (which requires no setting) a weasel and a rat, the former being dead. The question natur- ally suggests itself, which followed the other in?
18. Badger. Meles meles, Linn.
BellMeles taxus.
Still fairly represented in the county. They no longer I believe occur in any of the parishes in the south-east border of the county, but they certainly occur in many, and pro- bably in a large majority, of the remainder. Mr. W. Uthwatt of Little Linford Manor says there are none in that parish (though he has twice turned one down there) or in that of Newport Pagnell, but some were found in the adjoining parish of Calverton. They cannot be said to be ' generally distributed ' like rabbits, moles, etc., but inhabit certain woods or other spots, leaving others unoccu- pied. A few miles from Buckingham where woods are generally small, and the land chiefly pasture, they inhabit holes near the hedges of grass meadows quite devoid of rough vegetation or any other cover. Here on frosty mornings steam may be seen rising from the holes, apparently showing unmistak- ably where a badger is lying underneath. During the last thirty-three years I have kept a good many badgers in captivity ; a pair in my possession at the time of writing were caught about two miles from this house, and I have at different times been offered a good many from this neighbourhood. The female (of the above pair) was dug out in a neigh- bouring wood on 2 March 1902, with her two small cubs about three weeks old, which, as I had expected, she killed during the ensu- ing night. On different days in May 1902 I was brought another pair of cubs from the wood previously mentioned, born probably much about the same time as the other cubs, and therefore then aged about three months. These I also purchased, hoping to save their lives. The young female died from injury received in trapping, but the young male con- tinued to share a cage with the old female, where he gradually grew into a fine animal. Early on the morning of 21 March 1903 young were born, but whether the young male was their father, or some wild male met with over a year before I do not know. The gestation of badgers has been discussed over and over again during the last half-century, and though the accumulation of more instances is neces- sary before the question can be considered settled, yet the evidence available, when re- viewed, seems to point unmistakably to the very remarkable conclusion that the period may be anything between under five and over fifteen months, or a range of over ten months, and yet that the young are all born within a season of about six weeks. [1] In over twenty cases in which either the exact or approximate date of the births of young is recorded all fall between 10 February and 21 March, a small majority being in the latter month. Moreover the females which paired earliest by no means necessarily whelp earlier in the six weeks' season than others which paired several months after them.
It seems probable that the length of the individual gestation is correlated with a vary- ing degree of maturity in the young when born. For instance in one case the young were stated to have been blind for twenty- nine days, and in the case of a litter born in my collection the time was about thirty days, the bed-box being too dark to admit of certain observation ; while Mr. J. Paterson, who has bred several litters in captivity, states that the young are blind for six weeks, and the same time is given in a case recorded in; the Field, 11 May 1872. There is a similar difference of opinion as to whether the cubs are born naked. The litter generally numbers two, somewhat less frequently three ; sometimes there is only one cub and occasionally four, the average being about two and a quarter. Their eyes are very inconspicuous, being sunk, and not prominent as in the young of most animals. They are rather long-lived animals ; I had one female for over fourteen years, which had then to be killed, as she dis- located her shoulder ; and I know instances of their living over fifteen years in captivity. They are very inoffensive animals, and not at all quarrelsome. Albinism (though I cannot say whether in every case the eyes were pink, as in some instances I merely saw skins where the colour of the eyes had not been noted or since forgotten) is common among badgers ; but in every example that I have met with, including two or three Bucks specimens, the coat is not a uniform white, but the facial stripes, and all other parts which are normally black, are cinnamon-coloured. Badgers are wholly nocturnal, or crepuscular, never ven- turing abroad even in the long summer even- ings, before at least the near approach of twilight.
- ↑ For details see the Zoologist, 1904, p. 108.
161
