42 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX.
extending the earth every year. " They draw out astonishing
mounds of soil from the holes, and their underground town-
ship must be very roomy. They are tenants in common with
the foxes. Indeed it is an old fox-earth. Rabbits also
occupy a portion." Mr. Buxton adds that, although they
generally live in harmony, there is evidence that the Badgers
" are occasionally guilty of the heinous crime of vulpicide."
The accompanying sketch by Mr. H. A. Cole represents the
" earth " in which the Badgers here mentioned live.
Some of the following records may be of stragglers from
the Forest District:
Mr. James English says (Essex Nat., vol. i., p. 183) that
one was killed at Hill Hall Wood, Theydon Mount, in 1850;
another was shot in the same wood in 1874. Mr. Fleming
records (Field, March 14th, 1874) the capture of a fine animal
at Shailsmoor Spring, in this county, within seventeen miles
of London. Twelve years previously, near the same place,
one was dug out of a rabbit burrow. The next occurrence
shows that the species is not quite so invulnerable as we could
wish, since Mr. Miller Christy informs me that Mr. G. H.
Baxter, of Hutton Park, has a stuffed female badger which a
terrier killed in Epping Forest, near the Rising Sun, Wood-
ford, about the year 1888. The same gentleman records
(Zool., 1882, p. 303) one found dead in New Pasture Wood,
Great Saling; and another discovered dying in High Wood,
Writtle Park (Proc. Essex Field Club, vol. iv., p. lxviii). The
latter's existence had long previously been known to the
captor. Mr. E. A. Fitch notes (Essex Nat., vol. i., p. 114)
that a pair took up their abode in Park Wood, Shalford, and
bred there for at least three years. Mr. Robert Lodge
mentions (Essex Nat, vol. i., p. 186) one shot by mistake for
a cat in an outhouse on the north side of Ilford Station in
August, 1887. Another was killed on the line near Theydon