The Virtues of Hufflepuff House and Cedric Diggory (Was: Snape and . . .cour

[Phil Boswell]

No: HPFGUIDX 107052

"delwynmarch" <delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> Well, sure, a badger is definitely less "noble" than the other 3.
> But the next thing that strikes me while considering that list is
> that the first 3 are *dangerous* animals that pretty much spend
> their lives hunting down preys to eat (all 3 of them are exclusively
> carnivorous if I'm not mistaken). The badger, on the other hand,
> spends its life burrowing, and though it can eat small animals, it's
> not its exclusive food.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the Eurasian Badger (meles meles) is
generally said to be the largest carnivore native to the UK, where
this particular story is set (well, actually they're omnivores, but if
you saw me eating a steak, you'd wonder about just how that term can
be defined :-); they are definitely viewed as "noble" in the best
sense of the word.

They are usually just under a metre long, weighing around 10kg
(although some variations can bulk up to 32kg when necessary). They
feed on anything they can grub up and anything they can lay their paws on.

In order to do all the digging, they have *extremely* powerful front
paws. I would not want to get in the way of an annoyed badger. Why do
you think people hunt the poor benighted things with such large
numbers of hounds, and so many of the latter are injured/maimed/killed
in the process?

Sorry to sound rantful, but Badgers are a bit of a favourite here in
the UK. Bill Oddie just did a 3-week programme (in which Badgers vied
for centre-stage with the glorious Kate Humble, but that's by-the-bye
:-) which drew a huge audience, mostly hoping to see live footage of
wild Badgers.
-- 
Phil