land, is yearly becoming
more and more rare. In a few years, this curious and powerful member of
the _ferae_, will figure, like the bear and beaver, as among the extinct
quadrupeds of these islands. Naturalists will be recording that in the
days of Robert Burns it must have been not at all uncommon, and not rare
in those of Hugh Miller, since low dram-shops kept them for the
entertainment of their guests. The Ayrshire bard makes the Newfoundland
dog, Caesar, say to his comrade Luath, the collie, when, speaking of most
of the gentry of his day--

"They gang as saucy by poor folk
As I wad by a stinking brock."[42]

The author of "Old Red Sandstone" and "My Schools and Schoolmasters,"
has recorded in the latter work the history of his employment as a hewer
of great stones under the branching foliage of the elm and chestnut
trees of Niddry Park, near Edinburgh, and how, in the course of a strike
among the masons, he marched into town with several of them to a meeting
on the Links, where, conspicuous from the deep red hue of their clothes
and aprons, they were cheered as a reinforcement from a distance. On
adjourning, Hugh Miller, in his racy style, gives the following account
of a badger-baiting more than forty years ago:--

HUGH MILLER AND THE BADGER-BAITING IN THE CANONGATE.

"My comrades proposed that we should pass the time until the hour of
meeting in a public-house, and, desirous of securing a glimpse of the
sort of enjoyment for which they sacrificed so much, I accompanied them.
Passing not a few more inviting-looking places, we entered a low tavern
in the upper part of the Canongate, kept in an old half-ruinous
building, which has since disappeared. We passed on through a narrow
passage to a low-roofed room in the centre of the erection, into which
the light of day never penetrated, and in which the gas was burning
dimly in a close, sluggish atmosphere, rendered still more stifling by
tobacco-smoke, and a strong smell of ardent spirits. In the middle of
the crazy floor there was a trap-door, which lay open at the time; and a
wild combination of sounds, in which the yelping of a dog, and a few
gruff voices that seemed cheering him on, were most noticeable, rose
from the apartment below. It was customary at this time for dram-shops
to keep badgers housed in long narrow boxes, and for working men to keep
dogs; and it was part of the ordinary sport of such places to set the
dogs to unhouse the badgers. The w