Forest and stream (1887) (14781367194)

Identifier: ForeststreamXXIX (find matches)
Title: Forest and stream
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors:
Subjects: Periodicals Hunting Fishing Outdoor life Sports
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : (Forest and Stream Publishing Co.)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
als in having the lower jaw so articulated tothe upper, by means of a transverse condyle firmly lockedinto a long cavity of the cranium, that dislocation of thejaw is all but impossible, and this enables those creaturesto maintain their hold with the utmost tenacity. We must also note that Badgers vary both in color and standing, as it does, higher on its legs, presents us witha very good combination of a bear, a pig, and. a badger;but the limitations of space will prevent me from enter-ing upon any description of the habits of this highly in-teresting representative of our group, from India. Badgers subsist upon a very varied diet, consuming in-discriminately fruit, birds eggs, insects, frogs, smahmammals, nuts, and roots; our American Badger, how-ever, has been found to be far more carnivorous in itstastes than its European cousin. These animals spend most of then- time during the dayin the deep and extensive burrows which they are soeminently fitted by nature to excavate. They come
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Fig. 1. THE AMERICAN BADGER (T. a. ameHccma). Adult Male. of retaining our species in the genus Meles.) ProfessorBaird has remai-ked that, This genus is so strikingly dif-ferent from Meles as to render it a matter of astonishmentthat the typical species were ever combined. (Mamm.N. Amer., p. 201). If one will compare the head of theAmerican Badger here given in Figure 1, with my draw-ing of the head of a European specimen in Figure 2, it willbe seen at once how different, both in form and colora-tion, these parts alone are; and further, these differencesare fully supported by the remainder of the economies ofthe two species. Our Badgers then are plantigrade carnivora, and thebest and most elaborate account of the form, structure,and habits of the American Badger, that the writer knows size, depending upon the locality in which the specimensare collected; but these variations imperceptibly merge aswe come to compare series from all parts of the geographi-cal area over which the species