nd farms around the old
village, creatures that would elsewhere be in daily danger because of
their supposed attacks on game are almost entirely free from
persecution. In several of our woods, polecats seem to be more numerous
than stoats, and badgers are known, but only to the persistent observer,
to be more common than foxes; and both polecats and badgers are seldom
disturbed, though the farmers may regularly pass their burrows.

The immunity of such animals from harm is, to some extent, the result of
the farmer's lack of interest in their doings. He strongly resents the
presence of too many rabbits on his land, "scratching" the soil,
spoiling the hedges, and devouring the young crops, and, therefore,
cherishes no grudge against their enemies so long as his stock is
unmolested. He is no ardent protector of game, and, if a clutch of eggs
disappears from the pheasant's nest he has chanced to discover in the
woods, thinks little about the incident, and concludes that Ned the
blacksmith's broody hen has probably been requisitioned as a
foster-mother, and that some day he will know more of the true state of
affairs when he visits the smithy at the cross-roads.

Another circumstance to which the badger hereabouts is indebted for
security is that terriers are not the favourite dogs of the countryside.
When shooting, the sportsman prefers spaniels, particularly certain
"strains" of black and brown cockers--untiring little workers with a
keen, true power of scent--which for many years have been common in the
neighbourhood; and the farmer's sheep-dog is unfitted for any sport
except rabbiting. Here and there, among the poaching fraternity, may be
found a mongrel fondly imagined by its owner to be a terrier--a good
rabbit "marker," and wonderfully quick in killing rats, but no more
suited than the sportman's spaniel for "lying up" with a badger.

Undoubtedly, however, the security of some of our most interesting wild
animals, and especially of the badger, is to be accounted for by their
extreme shyness. They venture abroad only when the shadows of night lie
over the woods. For countless years, dogs and men have been their
greatest foes, and their fear of them is found to be almost as strong in
remote districts as where, near towns, their existence is continually
threatened. Wild life in our quiet valley will be deemed of unusual
interest when I say that less than six hours before writing these lines
I visited a badger's "set"-