Many naturalists hold the opinion that the badger sleeps during the winter, or at all events hibernates partially, that is to say, sleeps, like the squirrel, for a few weeks, awakes, and takes a hearty meal of the store of food it had sagaciously laid by in its nest ere retiring to winter quarters, and then, coiling itself up in its nest, goes off to sleep again. Whether this be true or not, I cannot with certainty affirm; but this I can safely declare, that I endeavoured as much as possible to make my badger hibernate, by exposing him to the unmitigated cold of an unusually severe winter, by furnishing him with straw and wool to line his nest, and with a stock of bread, snails, and potatoes, to lay up for winter use. He did not, however, avail himself of my assistance, but remained wakeful as usual during the entire winter. A remarkable fact worthy of notice here is, that although this badger exhibited no inclination to hibernate or sleep during the winter, he did display considerable disposition to aestivate, or sleep during the hot months of summer, for during that season he became languid and drowsy, lost his appetite and flesh, became ragged and foul in the coat, and in short pined away so rapidly that I feared I should lose him altogether; he however revived completely as winter, and that a cold one, approached. I made diligent inquiry of those who were in the habit of keeping badgers for baiting them, and also of the proprietors of several menageries, and learned from them that this disposition on the part of the badger to become weak and lose its condition in summer, is not confined to isolated individual cases, but is common to the entire tribe.