Part 2 (1/2)

”_White Badger at Overton, Hants._--While digging for badgers on April 30, we came across two dog badgers in the same earth, one of which was quite white, the colour of a white ferret, with pink eyes.

Unfortunately, the terriers punished him so much he had to be destroyed.

I have helped to dig out a great many of these animals, but never saw nor heard of a white one before.”--T. P.

PART III

There are several methods by which the badger can be taken alive, or killed, with ease. I am familiar with several successful ways of trapping him. The reader, if he is not aware of these, must not expect me to enlighten him, as my object in writing is to arouse an interest in his preservation, not to facilitate his destruction. It may be as well to state, however, that the inhuman engine, the steel trap (by which so many of the birds and beasts that frequented the wild woods of England and Scotland have been exterminated) is an instrument that arouses the suspicion of a badger at once, and he is as clever in avoiding it as an old-fas.h.i.+oned rat. The badger if caught in a steel trap will frequently bite his leg or foot clean off. In my opinion there are two legitimate methods of hunting the badger. First, that of a straight-forward attack on his fortress; and should it be an old-established earth, it may be the end of the longest day will not see the battle ended. There are, of course, the fortunes of war--a lucky engagement, a wrong turn on the part of the defender, a successful trench quickly cutting off his retreat--which may deliver him unexpectedly into your hands; or the enemy may outwit you altogether, conducting a masterful retreat, with gallant sorties on the dogs, and by continually changing his front drive you to abandon works, trenches, and operations that have cost great labour and time; thus you may be left with a tired and wounded pack of terriers, exhausted sappers, and the badger, having blocked and barricaded his retreat with soil, stones, and sand, is lost. The war thus made is an equal one: you attack him on his own ground in his fortress where he is acquainted with every pa.s.sage, gallery, and cas.e.m.e.nt; he is armed to the teeth and armour-plated, and can drive a road forward, downward, or upward with extraordinary rapidity. It is true you may have many terriers, but he has an advantage over your forces. Only one of your dogs can engage at a time, and the badger has the advantage of weight, size, knowledge of the ground, and familiarity with the dark--in fact, in every respect except those of courage and endurance, which in some terriers may equal his own. The other method, less sure, depends on taking the badger off his guard, and is more in the character of an ambuscade under cover of night. When the badgers are away from home you block up their earths, placing sacks with running nooses in the mouth, in the most frequented holes. Station one of your party near the ”set,” and you may either take a small pack of hounds and draw the country for a few miles round, and hunt him like a fox, getting a run across country and a fine cry; or you may beat the neighbouring coverts with men and dogs of any description that are trained to hunt the badger.

In the following, taken from an article which appeared in a newspaper, there is a good account of night hunting.

”Owing to his shy and retiring habits, rather than to the scarcity of the animal, probably less is known about the badger than about any wild animal left in England at the present time. There is a prevalent notion that the badger is exceedingly rare, and also that he is harmless; neither of these ideas is quite correct. In the west especially the badger is fairly common, but escapes notice owing to his retiring disposition. Whether he does harm to feathered game or not is a moot point, but his tracks have been distinctly noticed round plundered nests; it is certain, however, that he does great damage to ground game by digging out 'stops' of young rabbits in the spring and summer.

”When hunted after the fas.h.i.+on generally adopted in the west, he affords excellent sport to those who are prepared to face a long tramp and the loss of some of their night's rest. The prosaic way of digging them out of the earth involves much labour, and has in it no element of sport; while attempting to catch badgers in traps is about as feasible as trying to catch birds by putting salt on their tails. Driving them into sacks fixed in the earth is unsatisfactory, as a good game dog is necessary to press the badger hard, or he will turn from the earth and seek shelter elsewhere; while, if you have a good dog, the sacks are unnecessary except for the reception of the badger when caught by the dog.

”The paraphernalia of the chase are simple, namely, a good dog, a pair of badger-tongs, and a sack. A really good dog is very difficult to obtain; the favourite kind is a cross-bred bull-terrier, about forty pounds in weight; pure-bred bull-terriers, for some reason or other, do not seem to give satisfaction. The 'tongs' have wooden handles, and iron heads with blunt teeth for grasping the badger when held by the dog. For a successful hunt it is necessary to observe which way the badger travels from the earth. A favourite spot is the slope of a hill, or high-lying fields, where they may be easily tracked by the 'roots,'

_i.e._ small holes which they scratch in the ground in search of beetles and roots of various kinds. They rarely descend into low-lying meadows, except to drink. Choose a starlight night with a slight breeze blowing, and approach the earth up the wind. Do not hurry your dog; if he knows his work, he will range freely, but he often takes a long time to puzzle out the track. If you miss him, go on slowly in the direction in which you last saw him, often stopping to listen.

”'What was that?' The dry sticks crack in a hedge far below you. 'Hark!

two sharp eager barks; what does it mean?' Why, that Grip is wheeling out in a half-circle to gain slightly on the badger, and then to dash in and get him by the head. Run now as you never ran before. Head over heels into a ditch; never mind, up and on again--the best dog can't hold a badger for ever. There they are out in the open, Grip with a tight hold of the badger by the side of the head, with his legs tucked back out of harm's way. Grasp him with the tongs as near the neck as possible. Take off the dog, some one. Hold the bag. Hoist our grey-coated friend into the air, and lower him into the sack; he weighs at least thirty pounds. The dog is hardly marked, and you haven't torn more than three rents in your nether garments getting through that last thorn hedge. Altogether, every one agrees that it was a satisfactory little run.

”The old English sheep-dog I have known do well for the other method.

The badger when pursued makes straight for home, blunders headlong into the hole, only to find that his efforts to get in are closing the mouth of the sack, that retreat or fighting are alike in vain, and that he is an imprisoned bagman, without having struck a blow in self-defence. It is not uncommon for a badger thus pursued to stand at bay, when a good dog may keep him in play, or hold on, till you come up and secure him.

No doubt there is amus.e.m.e.nt and excitement in this moonlight chase, and to some it is preferable to the arduous labour with pick, spade, axe, and terrier.”

To my mind, however, there is something more interesting and exciting in the long-sustained conflict and labour of the latter, for which you require perseverance, wit, patience, and courage on the part of man and terrier. The courage and endurance that a good terrier will display when need requires before such a foe, will fill his owner's heart with joy and pride. A good terrier is a veritable treasure; the price of a sure, game, and determined one is far above rubies. Picture what it means for a small terrier to enter into the bowels of the earth to find, to cope with, and for long hours in dust and darkness in the tortuous maze to keep up an unequal fight with an enormously superior foe, whose grunts and clattering teeth add terror to his charges down the echoing ways.

Yet I have had not a few that, hour after hour, on their backs or their sides, would lie up to a badger, keeping him cornered, and continuously give tongue with no voice to direct them. Should the badger charge, such a terrier would rather die than let him leave the corner to which he has been driven, and will return fighting and facing his huge opponent, driving him inch by inch into the _cul de sac_, caring neither for bite nor wounds, and making noise enough to let you know where the battle rages. It is no part of his duty to tackle the badger. A good terrier knows this, and will only resort to his teeth should the badger attempt to force a pa.s.sage. If it comes to close quarters, such a terrier will draw back his fore-legs under his body, take the attack full in the face, and trust to seizing the badger by the neck. A badger when attacked generally bites upwards, _i. e._ he lowers his head and turns the back of his head downwards. Nothing makes the heart beat faster than, with head to the earth, to hear the din of this subterranean warfare carried along the dark galleries to the day. You have sent in one of your best terriers; he has tried by cajolery and caresses, by cries, by straining at his chain to be allowed the honourable distinction of first blood. You have dispatched him with your blessing, and he has quickly and silently started on his journey into the unknown.

You listen to him forcing his pa.s.sage, drawing himself round corners, scratching away some acc.u.mulation or fall from the roof, and hear his eager panting as he winds his foe. Presently you hear a low sharp bark, then another, then two or three more, next a b.u.mping, thumping noise; it is the badger, who has waited to see who the intruder is, and, rousing himself, is retreating. The terrier barks no more, but you can hear the thump-thump of the badger, followed by the efforts of the dog to keep up with him. They are now a long way in, and you can plainly hear the bark again. Soon the fight draws nearer, and the terrier's cry comes to your ear with regularity and clearness; but the badger is only disputing the way, he has not yet been driven with his back against the wall. The terrier redoubles his activity, you can hear him feinting at the badger, sharp give-and-take, but no foolish attempt to lay hold. After ten minutes the badger again retreats, probably up the hill, and you have to listen on the surface or at the higher holes of the set till you can hear them again. At last you catch a faint sound, they are still moving, now stationary, now further on; then they seem to stay in one place.

There is the steady yap-yap-yap of the dog just distinguishable to the ear.

Quick, every hand to work. A trench six feet deep, or deeper if necessary, must be cut across the set to cut off the badger from the pa.s.sages. With pick, spade, and shovel the work goes on, while some one listens to know whether the scene of battle moves. If it does, the badger may have found a side gallery, and gone far enough, or he may have charged the dog. He may have pa.s.sed by a different road beneath your feet in the trench; but if the terrier has succeeded in keeping him face to face and engaged, yet not driving him so hard as to make him charge, you may be successful in an hour or two, and find that your cutting intersects the pa.s.sage in which the badger and the terrier are engaged. If the badger suspects you are cutting off his only means of escape he will charge and fight, and the terrier will sometimes be unable to back fast enough; then there will be a meeting of teeth and jaws, the badger holding the dog through the head, jaw, or nose. The dog's smothered cries of anger and pain make you strain every nerve to get to his relief.

When the badger at last leaves go, the terrier's turn comes, and now with blood up he drives back the badger to his end of the hole with every determination to keep him there. After two or three turns like this, if the dog has been in an hour or two, he will probably come out for a breath of air for a moment. He should be immediately taken, fastened up, watered, and kept in reserve for future contingencies, and the best terrier for sticking up be sent in with the utmost haste. If a minute has been spent in doing this, every moment will have been used by the badger in barricading the pa.s.sage against the dog and burying himself. This once accomplished, you may as well whistle for your badger as continue digging, for he may have got down into some other gallery, or have buried himself so that neither dog nor man can find him. Of one thing you may be sure, that whilst you are speculating what has become of him, he is digging at a prodigious rate, or has already made his escape by some secret stair.

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; and the badger, seeing the men at work, backs again, followed by the dog. Now all is excitement. 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 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. Now is the time if you have a terrier to enter to see what he is made of, but there is no time to waste on education. You are close up to the badger, he cannot be an arm's-length off. Draw your dog, the badger will then turn his tail to you to dig, or he will charge out. Be ready with the tongs, and a good dog in case he charges. But if he turns tail get hold of it with a good grip. A long pull and a steady pull will draw him out, bouncing, lunging, and snapping. Now, boys, ready with the sack! Dogs off. All want steady nerves now; three hands on the sack mouth to keep it open, and take care of your fingers! A twirl round and a quick plunge, and the badger is in the bag. Don't let go his tail till you have slipped the cord on his hind-leg, and made the other end of the cord fast to the bag mouth and to a tree. I have seen a badger go through a sack like a bullet through paper, and it is well to make all as safe as possible.

M. Edmond le Ma.s.son, in his book on hunting fox and badger, severely deprecates tailing a badger. He denounces the danger and folly of it, and gives an amusing account of his falling into a trench at the critical moment as follows:--

”One fine day, or rather one cursed day, when I was sweating blood and water to get a monster badger out of his earth, a venerable patriarch, white with years, who resisted my aching tired arms and weary back with all his strength, the earth gave way and I fell back, rolling over with the animal, and there I was at the bottom of the abyss in a veritable pandemonium. Bruised and breathless, I was conscious enough to know that I was in very bad company, with four more badgers, a furious mother and three young ones, and not so young either but that one of them was able to tear from me a large piece of the most indispensable part of my attire, which placed me in a position of cruel embarra.s.sment, and obliged me to wait till the shades of night enabled me to get home with decency. The most humiliating part of the adventure was that all these cursed brutes, father, mother, and children, made the most insolent retreat over my stomach to escape from their earth, and then took off straight across country and escaped. From this moment I have felt a ferocious malice against all badgers, whether big, middling, or little, and I never go down into the trench now without having a Lefaucheux revolver and a Devisme revolver, a long dagger knife, and a sharp Toledo colichemarde!”

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. I have, with my brother, Mr. J. A. Pease, started at 7.30a.m. from home, worked a summer's day with a slight refreshment at one, handled pick and shovel and spade, fought the terriers, and gone on through the afternoon, evening, and a black wet night, without even a drop of water to slake our parched throats, deserted by all but one faithful workman, and on till the grey dawn of another day, which found us as weary, wet, and wounded, and as disreputable a looking company of three men and four terriers as ever survived a b.l.o.o.d.y action. At five o'clock we secured a splendid pair of badgers, which we bore home on aching backs, followed by our gallant little team of draggled and dirty terriers. On another occasion, it took my brother and myself, some ten labourers and keepers, and nine terriers, from 10 till 5.30 to take an old 30-lb. dog badger, in an earth which had only one hole, and where it was a case of following straight into the hill. It is wonderful what can be done by twelve men with pick, spade, and shovel in seven hours. On this occasion we dug a trench ten feet long into the hill, and then the depth of bearing necessitated our making a drift, or tunnel, which we drove in thirty feet. The heat and want of air inside made the work difficult. Candles would not burn after we had gone about twenty feet, and the tunnel was so low that we had to work on our knees and then on our stomachs. There was a considerable danger from the roof falling in, but the fight waged so fiercely that we thought of little but what was ahead of us. When at last we got within distance of the badger, he was in rocky ground, we could mine no further, and being on a shelf round a corner no terrier could draw him. As I was the smallest of the party, it fell to me to try and reach him, and I crawled up as far as I could, holding a little bull-terrier on whom I could rely for protection for my face, and a pair of short badger tongs. I had indeed a bad quarter of an hour!

It was stifling, cramped, and pitch dark. I kept the terrier in front of my head and gallantly he behaved, though every now and then the badger's charge, or a fierce encounter, nearly smothered me with dust and soil, against which I could not protect myself, as I was powerless to retreat, there being only room to lie flat on the ground. The man behind me was in the same position, tight hold of my ankles, and the man again behind him, and the rest of the force made a human chain, which on a signal from me was to be drawn out to daylight. Many attempts I made when the badger charged to get him with the tongs, but I had so little room to work my hands in that I missed him, and heard and felt the click and snack of his teeth on the iron. At last I felt I had hold of something, and I slipped the guard on the tongs, making the hold sure. I cried ”Haul away,” holding the terrier with one hand between me and the badger, and the tongs in the other. I found that he came with wonderful ease. It was not till we got to the light that I saw I had the huge bouncing brute by one claw, ”Nip” diverting his attention from my head and hands. The labourers set up a shout, ”He's got him by the clee,” and a minute later we had the satisfaction of bagging him. But we were out only just in time. I had gone back with the terriers to see if there was nothing more in, and hardly had got outside again, when there was a fall from the roof that would, if it had taken place earlier, have buried some of us alive. As it was I looked round to see if we were all there. The men were, but one little terrier, ”Pepper,” a real treasure belonging to a neighbour of mine in Cleveland, Mr. J. P. Petch, was missing. We went in and found him buried, but got him out alive and little the worse. This was the biggest badger my brother and I ever got.