Badger
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Badger. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a flat-footed, flesh-eating, burrowing animal allied to the skunk and weasel. The family is widely distributed. Species are found in Europe, India, Japan, South Africa, and America. The flesh is used for food. The pelt is used by furriers. The hair is in demand for shaving brushes and artists' pencils. The European species burrows in banks and copses. Badger hunting is a standard sport in the border counties of Great Britain . Scott's Guy Mannering gives a vivid description of a badger or "brock" hunt, as it is called in the northern counties. The badger defends itself with courage when attacked. The yeomanry of England were at one time given to badger baiting or fighting between a badger and one or more dogs. The badger was frequently given a barrel turned on its side for a shelter. The expression, "to badger" or harass, is derived from this sport. The American badger is an animal of the prairie and plain. It ranged formerly throughout the Mississippi Valley and westward to Central Mexico and the Pacific Coast. It is now rarely found east of the Mississippi. It has a sharp nose, a broad, flat body, short legs, and large claws. It lives in burrows of its own construction, emerging at night to hunt gophers, mice, eggs of ground birds, and even reptiles and insects. If caught by chance in the open during the day time, it tucks its head and feet under its body and lies so flat as to be mistaken easily for a hillock of earth. It is dormant in winter. The badger has been exterminated in the eastern part of its range, and is now found most frequently in the region of the prairie dog . Wisconsin has received the nickname of the " Badger State ," and its inhabitants are sometimes called "Badgers."
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a plantigrade, carnivorous mammal, allied both to the bears and to the weasels, of a clumsy make, with short thick legs, and long claws on the forefeet. The common badger (meles vulgaris) is as large as a middle-sized dog, BADGER but much lower on the legs, with a flatter and broader body, very thick, tough hide, and long, coarse hair. It inhabits the N. of Europe and Asia, burrows, is indolent and sleepy, feeds by night on vegetables, small quadrupeds, etc. Its flesh may be eaten, and its hair is used for artists' brushes in painting. The American badger belongs to a separate genus.
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
To bury the foot of a badger underneath one's sleeping-place is believed by the Voodoo worshippers and certain Gypsy tribes to excite or awaken love.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account treats the badger mainly as quarry — "badger hunting is a standard sport in the border counties" — and the source of shaving brushes and artists' pencils. In Britain the animal is now legally protected, first by the Badgers Act 1973 and then the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which made digging for or baiting badgers a serious criminal offence; yet since 2013 the state has licensed culls across England to curb bovine tuberculosis in cattle, killing well over 200,000 animals amid furious dispute over whether it works. Diet studies have also overturned Collier's 1921 picture of a beast feeding on "vegetables, small quadrupeds": the European badger, correctly Meles meles rather than the older meles vulgaris, is an omnivore whose staple food is earthworms, and it does not truly hibernate but enters winter torpor. The American badger, rightly noted in 1921 as "a separate genus," is Taxidea taxus, while the African honey badger (Mellivora capensis) has become an internet byword for aggression.
Written for this edition, 2026.