The Fur Animals of Louisiana 



129 



The overpowering and often sickening odor which has 

 given the skunk its greatest notoriety comes from a liquid 

 secreted in two anal glands— a characteristic of all mem- 

 bers of the Mustilidae family. They are especially devel- 

 oped m the true skunk, but are so thoroughly under con- 

 trol that in ordinary times the animal is cleanly and prac- 

 tically free from odor. A common folk tale is to the effect 

 that the skunk distributes its odorous liquid by scattering 

 it with the long hairs of it tail. This is not so. The liquid, 

 which is not the animal's urine, is ejected in fine jets from 

 two small tubes connected with the glands just described, 

 the propulsion power being a powerful sst of muscles sur- 

 rounding the sacs. The secretion thus propelled by the 

 muscular contraction can be sent a distance of 8 to 12 feet 

 and is a clear, yellowish liquid having a most penetrating 

 ana nauseous smell, which has been known, under favoring 

 conditions of wind, to be detected at a distance of a mile 

 from where it was emitted by the disturbed animal. 



B& 



It is well known that a skunk h 

 not around it, like a convict 

 history of L 

 Be 



:unk has stripes but they run lengthwise on the body and 

 un.torm, as the artist who embellished Le Pace Hn P, a t7'. 

 story or Lou.s.ana would have had the readers cf that early Louisiana hiftroy belteve 



\LZ?T a t\?:T n% St ^ ing hS T-" W ? S < a ' 733 designation of th's odoriferous fur' 

 umal that can be applied to it with equal force in 193 1. 



