VOL i. El Zorillo. 273 
that the belief in the certain and horrible death which would in- 
evitably follow the bite of a skunk, was general, and while in the 
mountains, where the animals were said to be most numerous, the 
four Mexicans who were with me always slept near the fire, and 
with heads entirely covered by their serapes. Indeed, there was not 
a night when gathered about the camp fire but what some one had 
an account to give of an adventure with a rabid skunk, wild-cat, or. 
panther. Some of the accounts were so detailed, especially in one 
instance, that I am forced to believe that there have been cases of 
death from the bite of a rabid skunk, but that all skunks are thus 
afflicted, and go wandering about seeking victims, is too absurd to 
be credited. No cases were reported to me from north of the tropic, 
and it would seem from this that from some cause the skunk is more 
subject to rabies in the lower latitudes. One or two told me that 
at times the skunks fed upon a certain species’ of black beetle 
( Tenebrionidg ?), and forthwith went mad. The most trusted 
guard against the ‘‘zorillos’’ are the cur dogs, which abound at 
every rancho. When starting for the high sierra near Agua Cali- 
ente we had two large dogs (capable of eating a man’s rations) 
with us, but the first night out they fought and one deserted. I be- 
lieve if both had run away the Mexicans would have gone no far- 
ther. Iam told that Mr. John Xantus, while in the “ cape region,’’ 
was accompanied by two or three curs to keep away the skunks. 
One man of more than usual intelligence told me that while deer 
hunting in the Sierra de la Laguna he had lost a dog from hydro- 
phobia, and one night while sleeping (with his head covered, of 
course) he had been awakened by the weight of some animal walk- 
ing slowly along his body, and had waited until it was close to his 
head, when he suddenly threw it and blanket beyond his feet. 
Springing up he seized a stick from the fire in time to meet a skunk 
as it returned to attack him. 
The malady is one of a very few for which the people have no 
remedy in the herbs of the country. The only reported case of a 
cure was by a foreign doctor, who treated a man who had become 
so violent that the authorities had ordered him to be shot. The 
doctor’s method of treatment was of a heroic nature. The patient 
was first plunged into a stream of fresh water until apparently 
drowned, then taken out and when partly resuscitated certain inter- 
nal medicines, the names of which the Ponca would not divulge, | 
