er
parents. Lagging behind the rest of the family, as in single file they
moved homeward after a long night's hunting in the fallow, she chanced
to scent some carrion in the ditch, turned aside to taste it, and
immediately was held fast in the teeth of an iron trap. Hearing her
cries of pain and terror, the mother hastened to the spot, and, for a
moment, was so bewildered with disappointment and anger that she
chastised the cub unmercifully, though the little creature was enduring
extreme agony. But directly the old badger recovered from her fit of
temper, she sought to make amends by petting and soothing the frightened
cub, and trying to remove the trap. Finally, after half an hour's
continuous effort, she accidentally found that the trap was connected
by a chain with a stake thrust into the ground. Quickly, with all the
strength of her muscular fore-paws, she dug up the soil at the end of
the chain, and then, with powerful teeth, wrenched the stake from its
position. Dragging the cruel trap, the young badger slowly followed her
dam homeward, but when she had gone about a hundred yards pain overcame
her, and she rolled down a slight incline near the hedge. For a few
minutes, she lay helpless; then, grunting hoarsely, she climbed the
ditch, and continued her way in the direction of a gap leading into the
wood. There, as she gained the top of the hedge, the trap was firmly
caught in the stout fork of a thorn-bush. Further progress was
impossible; all her frantic struggles failed to give her freedom. The
dam stayed near, vainly endeavouring to release her, till at dawn a
rustle was heard in the hedge, and a labourer on his way to the farm
came in sight above a hurdle in the gap. Reluctantly, the old badger
stole away into the wood, leaving the cub to her fate. It came--a single
blow on the nostrils from a stout cudgel--and all was over.

The lesson thus taught left a salutary impression on the minds of the
other cubs. From it they learned that the presence of stale flesh was
somehow associated with the peculiar scent of oiled and rusty iron, or
with the taint of a human hand, and was fraught with the utmost danger.
They somehow felt that their dam acted wisely in rolling over any
decaying refuse she happened to find on her way; and later, when Brock,
seizing an opportunity to imitate his mother, sprang another trap,
which, closing suddenly beneath his back, did no more harm than to rob
him of a bunch of fur, they recognis