THEBADGER.
He is a grey hard haired animal, a good deal of the pig kind; and is not near so hurtful as many other animals of the vermin kind; for the chief mischief he does, consists in scratching of earths, or holes, which afterwards serve for earth for the foxes to harbour in, and in scratching and grubbing up the ground, in searching after his food, such as pignuts and roots, on which, and on beach-mast, acorns, crabs, and other trash, he subsists, but does not prey on living things of any kind, as has been asserted by some authors, who have falsly affirmed that he destroys and lives on young lambs, pigs, and poultry; and inconsequence of the simplicity of his food, I have known, in some places, people will eat them, being generally very fat, and their flesh exceedingly sweet.
I have practised two methods of taking the Badger with great success, the first of which is, when you have found out one of their earths, let two persons go out in the night, while they are in search of their food, and put a thin sack into the hole, and fasten it at the mouth, that the Badger may not run away with it; then let one person remain near the hole, while the other beats round the fields with a dog, in order to drive him home; when he finds the dog after him, he runs to his hole as fast as possible, and goes into the sack, which slips close like a purse; the party who stayed near the hole, on hearing his approach, lays hold of the mouth of the sack, and pulls out the Badger in it, and this method is termed, Sacking the Badger. Another way is to place a steel trap, in which youwill catch him very easily, as he is nothing near so shy as the fox; when you come to his earths or holes, make the mouths of all the angles quite smooth, and come again the next morning, when you will see whether any have been in or gone out, and if you track him in and out, then put a trap in each earth, in the same manner as you did for the fox, and you need not fear catching him, but remember to stake down your trap, that he may not go away with it.