Their food supply covers a wide range, but the chief source is furnished by the in- vertebrate hosts beetles, worms, slugs, etc. ; but nothing (in a fresh state) that I know of except toads, that can be included under the comprehensive term 'animal food,' comes amiss to them. Stops of young rabbits, and old ones to boot ; mice, and especially moles ; the young of any ground-nesting bird they happen to meet with, but I do not believe they interfere with adult birds ; snakes, lizards and frogs are all acceptable. The last named in captivity at least they treat in a singular manner. Hold- ing down the unlucky frog with one fore foot, they literally scrub it to death with the palm of the other foot ; the object being apparently to get rid of the secretion of slime. I tried my badgers one day with the carcase (without skin and skull) of an old polecat which had died extremely fat. They were not very hungry, and a good choice of other food was offered at the same time. Both badgers came up and smelt the polecat, and seemed at first not much to like it, but after a minute or two the female in preference to the other varieties of food, seized the carcase and began devour- ing the intestines with evident relish. Next morning not a vestige of the polecat was to be found. Wasp and bee grubs and honeycomb are appreciated as usually credited to them, and I have also no doubt they eat certain kinds of vegetable food green corn for one but what the ' various roots ' are that books always say they dig up, I am not botanist enough to know, though I do not for a moment doubt the fact. Mr. Harting in his article already alluded to (Zoologist, 1888) enumerates ' roots of various kinds, the bulbs of the wild hyacinth, earth-nuts, beech-mast, acorns, fungus, blackberries.' In captivity they will eat all ordinary kinds of vegetables boiled. Mr. W. Uthwatt writes to me :
The idea that they drive away foxes is absurd, there are hundreds of places where they have lived together for centuries. Neither is there any proof that they interfere with game, as there are never any remains found that could be attributed to them, either in their burrows or other haunts. They like a dry sandy soil the best, by the side of a hill, as this makes it easier digging. They have been called the ' pioneers of fox-earths and the natural miners of the country.'
A curious point in their anatomy is in the articular part of the glenoid fossa on the skull, which receives the condyle of the lower jaw on each side. The edges of these articular parts are so prolonged and curled over the condyles as to effectually clasp them in place ; and even in a macerated skull the lower man- dible of an adult cannot be detached. The digging powers of a badger are marvellous. In soft ground they can bury themselves in a very few minutes. Visiting a pair of badgers in my possession, late one night, I found the female more than her own depth underground, though the floor of the cage was composed of paving bricks set in cement and bedded on concrete. One of a pair of these animals formerly in my collection, aged eleven, was found lying dead on the floor of the outer part of the cage ; its abdomen was such an enormous size that I supposed it was the female that had died in parturition, and was surprised to find that it was the male. The enormous distention of the abdomen was caused by a hydatid cyst in the liver, making that organ quite half as large as a football. Presumably the badger had swallowed an egg of tapeworm with the intestines of a rabbit, and not proving a suitable ' host ' for that pest, the scolex had revenged itself by inflating itself, and the unlucky badger's liver, into this huge hydatid.
19. Otter. Lutra lutra, Linn.
BellLutra vulgaris.
Owing to the entire southern boundary of the county being formed by the Thames, whose waters with their bends flow for nearly thirty miles within its confines, the county boundary being as a rule in mid-stream, otters are fairly well represented. Were it not for the big river affording a certain measure of shelter and opportunities for reproduction, otters would be very scarce in the county ; for as Mr. W. Uthwatt of Great Linford Manor, Master of the Bucks Otter Hounds, to whom I am indebted for some most inter- esting notes on the species in the county, quoted in due course, writes :
The smaller rivers are supplied with otters from the deep waters of the Thames and Ouse. It Js disgraceful the way that otters are trapped and shot on the Thames, on account of the ignorant prejudice that they harm the fishing. A couple of swans will do more harm to fish than twenty otters. If they are killed on the big waters, the smaller waters cannot be supplied, for this is only done by otters travelling, they do not stay in one place long.
I am happy to say that the secretary of the Thames Conservancy in response to a request I made him in 1903, at the suggestion of Mr. C. Barnett, of Mill End, Hambleden, has now forbidden the lock-keepers and other men in their employ to trap otters.
Mr. Uthwatt considers that in North Bucks ' there are not more than one or two
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