that complete, vigilant interest in
their ordinary surroundings which makes for enlightenment and success.

Having lost the love of "venerie" possessed by their forefathers, the
farmers cared little about any wild creatures but hares and rabbits; a
badger's ham was to them an unknown article of food. The fear of a
baited trap had, therefore, probably descended from one badger to
another since days when the green-gowned forester came to the farm, from
the lodge down-river, and sought assistance in the capture of an animal
for the sport of an otherwise dull Sunday afternoon in the courtyard of
the nearest castle; or even since ages far remote, when a badger's flesh
was esteemed a luxury by the earliest Celts.

Unbaited traps, in the "runs" of the rabbits, had at intervals been
common for centuries; but now the carefully prepared baits and the
unusually strong traps seemed to indicate nothing less than an organised
attack on other and more powerful night hunters. The badger's fears,
however, were hardly warranted. Five traps had been placed in the wood
by a curious visitor staying at the village inn. In one of these,
Brock's sister had been caught; but the owner of the trap knew nothing
beyond the fact that it had mysteriously disappeared from the spot where
he had seen it fixed. Another was sprung by Brock; two at the far end of
the wood were so completely fouled by a fox that every prowling creature
carefully avoided the spot; while in the fifth was found a single
blood-stained claw, left to prove the visit of a renegade cat.

It may well be imagined that a large and interesting animal like the
badger, keeping for many years to an underground abode so spacious that
the mound at its principal entrance is often a quite conspicuous
landmark for some distance in the woods, would be subject to frequent
and varied attacks from man, and thus be speedily exterminated. It may
also be imagined that the habits of following the same well worn paths
night after night, of never ranging further than a few miles from the
"set," and of living so sociably that the community sometimes numbers
from half-a-dozen to a dozen members, apart from such lodgers as foxes,
rabbits, and wood-mice, would all combine to render the creature an easy
prey.

But if the badger's ways are carefully studied, the very circumstances
which at first seem unfavourable to him are found to account for much of
his immunity from harm. The depth of his breeding cham