Badgers

Fort Mandan Descriptions

Private Richard Windsor had bagged the first badger for the expedition’s record on 6 February 1804, back at Camp Dubois; the second was killed on 30 July 1804 north of Omaha, by which time a little more was known of its habits. Clark’s quotation marks imply that Lewis may have dictated part of the description:

Joseph Fields [Joseph Field] Killed and brought in an Anamale Called by the French Brarow [properly blaireau], and by the Ponies [Pawnees] Cho car tooch [properly cuhkatus].    this Anamale Burrows in the Ground and feeds on flesh (Prarie Dogs), Bugs, & vigatables—   “His Shape & Size is like that of a Beaver, his head mouth &c. is like a Dogs^[1]See also Domestic Dogs. with Short Ears, his Tail and Hair like that of a Ground Hog, and longer, and lighter.    his Inter[n]als like the interals of a Hog,[“]

his Skin thick and loose, his Belly is White and the Hair Short—    a white Streek from his nose to his Sholders.

The toe nails of his fore feet is one Inch & ¾ long, & feet large; the nails of his hind feet ¾ of an Inch long, the hind feet Small and toes Crooked, his legs are Short and when he Moves Just Suffcent to raise his body above the Ground[.]     He is of the Bear Species.    we have his Skin Stuffed—

No doubt Lewis was preoccupied with the preservation process, for his entry was shorter. “It is a carniverous anamal,” he corrected Clark, and added two important details: “on both sides of the upper jaw is fexed one long and sharp canine tooth . . . . it’s eye are small black and piercing.” A badger had been killed in Canada twenty-five years earlier and sent to Scotland for study, but word of it had not yet sifted into the scientific community-at-large, so Lewis confidently claimed that it was “not common to any part of the United States.”

In April 1805, he sent back to Jefferson, via the returning barge (called the ‘boat’ or ‘barge’ but never the ‘keelboat’), “Skins of a Male and female Braro, or burrowing Dog of the Prarie, with the Skeliton of the female.” However, he didn’t write his most detailed description of the species until 26 February 1806, at Fort Clatsop (see below).

Owen’s Dictionary, which was in the expedition’s reference library, did not include an entry on the wolverine, but it did contain a short description of the “Badger, meles,” or the Eurasian badger, which is somewhat larger, and of a different color, than the American version.

The badger is about the size of a small dog. Specifically, Lewis reported that “its forelegs [are] remarkably large and muscular and are formed like the ternspit dog,” and “are short as are also the hind legs.” Its neck is short, he continued, and:

the head is formed much like the common fist [feist] dog only that the skull is more convex.    the mouth is wide and furnished with sharp streight teeth both above and below, with four sharp streight pointed tusks, two in the upper and two in the lower jawl . . . . whiskers are plased in four points on each side near the nose and on the jaws near the opening of the mouth.    the ears are very short wide and appressed as if they had ben cut off.

Its fur is composed of bristly hairs which, being yellow towards the roots, of a blackish brown in the middle, and of a deeper yellow at the tips, give the creature an odd mixture of deep brown and pale yellow, together sometimes producing a pale shade of grey; whence, in many localities, the animal itself was called the grey.^[2]A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; comprehending all the branches of useful knowledge, with accurate descriptions as well of the various Machines, instruments, tools, figures, and … Continue reading One characteristic of the American badger is its awkward, ambling gait. “I have in two instances out run this anamal and caught it,” Lewis remarked in his Fort Clatsop documentation. That’s not surprising, for a badger doesn’t have to run from anything; four-legged mammals know enough to keep their distance. But exactly how Lewis caught it with his bare hands is questionable, for although its normal demeanor is shy but watchful, a perceived challenge can change it into a high-speed digging machine, temporarily blinding its pursuer with dirt, and disappearing into the earth. Otherwise, it will back into the entrance of any handy burrow, and transmogrify itself into a demoniacally snapping, clawing, noisy, stinky adversary.

Badger pelts were highly valued by Indians. The “Principal Chief” of the Salish gave the captains a gift of a “Dressed Braro skin” on 5 September 1805. Artists have long prized its fur for brushes.

Fort Clatsop Description

Meriwether Lewis wrote many of his most detailed descriptions of plants and animals during the winter of 1806, while confined to his quarters by the persistent rains. On 26 February 1806 he summarized what he had learned about the western badger, Taxidea taxus. The generic name, meaning “badgerlike,” is a reference to its general resemblance to the common badger of Eurasia. The specific epithet taxus is Latin for badger. Together they mean “a badgerlike badger.”

the Braro^[3]The French spelling is blaireau. It means badger, shaving brush, or badger-hair brush. The verb blaireauter means to paint with great care; to soften or blend paint with a blaireau. so called by the French engagés^[4]An engagé was a French-Canadian hired hand. From St. Charles, Missouri to Fort Mandan the Corps of Discovery was assisted by perhaps a dozen engagés. is an animal of the civit genus and much resembles the common badger . . . .^[5]Lewis was correct in 18th-century terms. Webster’s first dictionary, the Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1806, defined civet as “an animal of the weasel … Continue reading this is an inhabitant of the open plains of the Columbia as they are of those of the Missouri but are sometimes also found in the woody country . . . . they burrow in the hard grounds of the plains with surprising ease and dexterity an will cover themselves in the ground in a very few minutes . . . . they have five long fixed nails on each foot; those of the forefeet are much the longest; and one of those on each hind foot is double like those of the beaver. they weigh from 14 to 18 lbs . . . .

Lewis continues:

the body is reather long in proportion to it’s thickness . . . . the forelegs remarkably large and muscular and are formed like the ternspit dog . . . .^[6]Properly turnspit, a small dog with a long body and crooked legs once bred for use in tread-wheels to turn roasting spits. they are short as are also the hind legs . . . . they are broad across the sholders and brest . . . . the neck short . . . . the head is formed much like the common fist dog^[7]Properly feist, a small dog of uncertain breed; a mongrel, a cur. only that the skull is more convex. the mouth is wide and furnished with sharp straight teeth both above and below, with four sharp straight pointed tusks, two in the upper and two in the lower jaw . . . . the eyes are black and small. whiskers are plased in four points on each side near the nose and on the aws near the opening of the mouth. the ears are very short wide and appressed as if they had ben cut off . . . . the aperture through them to the head is remarkably small . . . . the tail is about 4 inches long; the hair longest on it at it’s junction with the body and becoming shorter towards it’s extremity where it ends in an acute point. the hairs of the body are much longer on the side and rump than any other part, which gives the body and apparent flatness, particularly when the animals rests on it’s belley . . . . this hair is upwards of 3 inches in length particularly on the rump where it extends so far towards the point of the tail that it almost conceals the shape of that part and gives to the whole of the hinder part of the body the figure of an acute angled triangle of which the point of the tail forms the acute angle . . . . the small quantity of coarse fur which is intermixed with the hair is of a redish pale yellow . . . . the hair of the back, sides, upper part of the neck and tail, are of a redish light or pale yellow for about 2/3rds of their length from the skin, next black, and then tiped with white; forming a curious mixture of grey and fox coloured red with a yellowish hue . . . . the belley flanks and breast are of the foxcoloured redish yellow. the legs black . . . . the nails white the head on which the hair is short, is variagated with black and white . . . . a narrow strip of white commences on the top of the nose about 1/2 an inch from it’s extremity and extends back along the center of the forehead and neck nearly to the sholders . . . . two stripes of black succeed the white on either side imbracing the sides of the nose, the eyes, and extends back as far as the ears . . . . two other spots of black of a ramboidal figure are placed on the side of the head near the ears and between them and the opening of the mouth . . . . two black spots also immediately behind the ears . . . . the other parts of the head white. this animal feeds on flesh, roots, bugs, and wild fruits . . . . it is very clumsy and runs very slow . . . . I have in two instances out run this animal and caught it . . . . In this rispect they are not much more fleet than the porcupine.

Behavior

The American badger, officially Taxidea taxus,^[8]The generic name (pronounced tax-ID-ee-uh) means “badger-like,” in reference to the Eurasian badger. The specific epithet, pronounced TAX-us, simply means “badger.” belongs to the Family Mustelidae (mus-TELL-i-dee; Latin for weasel), which consists of small carnivorous animals such as weasels, wolverines, skunks, and otters. Taxidea taxus ranges from northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois through Wisconsin—of which it has been the state animal since 1957—to southwestern Canada, and from the Mississippi River to the Rockies and the California coast.

Badgers feed on carrion and reptiles, including the rattlesnake, against whose fangs this Mustelid’s tough hide is suitable armor. But their principal fare is the rodent, and humankind still benefits from their compulsive predation on prairie dogs, gophers, ground squirrels, and the like. That’s a mixed benefit for Western ranchers who work their cattle on horseback, however, because adult badgers measure about 12 inches wide by 8 inches high, and their holes consequently are larger than rodent holes, and are serious hazards for running horses and other hooved animals. Toussaint Charbonneau was reminded of that on 18 July 1806, when, as Clark reported, he was:

thrown from his horse . . . in pursute of a Buffaloe, the ho[r]se unfortunately Steping into a Braroe hole fell and threw him over his head. . . . he is a good deel brused on his hip Sholder & face.

Since Clark didn’t mention the fate of the horse, we may assume it didn’t suffer a broken leg.

Populations

Badgers are more numerous today than wolverines, and probably were back then, too. In fact, being opportunists, they have been known to expand their territories into modern urban areas: Early in the summer of 2003 a few of Lewis’s “burrowing Dog[s] of the Prarie” made pests of themselves within the city limits of Great Falls, Montana, in the neighborhood where Lewis probably saw his “mystery mammal.”

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at least in England, badgers were hunted for sport by landed gentlemen with hounds and horses. Owen’s Dictionary, the multi-volume encyclopedia that the Corps of Discovery is believed to have carried, contained an article on hunting that advised, “Having taken a live and lusty badger, if you would make sport, carry him home in a sack, and turn him out in your court-yard, or some other inclosed place, and there let him be hunted and worried to death by your hounds.” The article listed the profits and advantages that would accrue by killing badgers: “Their flesh, blood, and grease, tho’ they are not good food, yet are very useful for physicians and apothecaries for oils, ointments, salves, and powders for shortness of breath, the cough of the lungs, for the stone, sprained sinews, colt-ches, &c. and the skin being well dressed, is very warm and good for antient people who are troubled with paralytic distempers.” No advice was offered concerning who was qualified to put the combative badger in the sack, nor how to do it without injury to himself.

References

John O. Whitaker, Jr. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals (revised edition, New York: Knopf, 1996).

David Macdonald, ed. The Encyclopedia of Mammals. (New York: Facts on File, 1985).