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,