If an ascertained Badger "set" be watched in the late evening, the occupant may be seen to put out his head and, elevating his snout, sniff at the air to ascertain whether it bears any enemy taint. If all is well the Badger emerges, perhaps followed by the cubs; and they follow the well-worn tracks that their feet have hardened, and hunt for food. St. John says: "Eggs are his delight, and a partridge's nest with seventeen or eighteen eggs must afford him a fine meal, particularly if he can surprise and kill the hen-bird also; snails and worms which he finds above ground during his nocturnal rambles are likewise included in his bill of fare." In winter the Badger retires to a specially deep chamber, excavated below the nursery apartment, and prepared in autumn by bedding it with fallen leaves which ferment and keep up a moist warmth. The passages are blocked to keep out unwelcome visitors as well as cold, and when the cold renders food scarce the family retires and settles down to a long sleep. In any short spell of mild weather the Badgers will emerge and see what is to be picked up. The cubs taken young are easily tamed, and in response to kind treatment show a considerable amount of attachment to their owners. Happily for our national reputation, the brutal custom--it was called a "sport"--of badger-baiting has long been a thing of the past. Commending itself, as it did, very strongly to certain elements in our society, it is probable that it may have continued much longer but for the growing difficulty in obtaining victims. The Badger's dental formula is: _i 3/3, c 1/1, p 4/4, m 1/2 = 38_. The minute first premolar in each jaw is frequently shed early, and may be missing from any adult skull examined. Although the Badger is a distinctly local species, it is widely distributed in Britain and Ireland. In the latter country, where it is common, Badger hams are not an unknown delicacy in rustic larders. In Europe it extends from the south of Sweden to Italy. [Illustration: _Pl. 38._ _E 58._ *Otter.* Lutra vulgaris.] [Illustration: _Pl. 39._ _E 59._ *Otter swimming.* When the rivers are low the Otter retires to sea-caves.] *Otter* (_Lutra vulgaris_, Erxleben). The Otter is by no means the nearly extinct beast that is commonly imagined; but he who would see it in a wild state must seek it by night along the banks of remote streams or tarns, where there are alder-holts, or in the neighbourhood of the East Anglian Broads. It may sometimes be found by day, by searching the caves on some remote part of our coast where the cliffs are rocky and the shore strewn with boulders. Even so near the congested haunts of men as the upper Thames, Otters are occasionally trapped.