130 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



The skunk was well known to the early French settlers 

 of Louisiana, who gave it the distinctive name of Bete 

 puante, or "Stinking animal." One would scarcely recognize 

 the animal from LePage duPratz's illustration, but he was 

 a little more successful in his written description. This 

 French naturalist-historian wrote of it : 



"The 'Bete Puante' is as small as an eight-months' 

 cat. The male is a beautiful black and the female 

 black and striped with white. Its eye is quick ; its ears 

 and paws like the mouse's. I believe they live on fruit 

 and grain. It is well named puante, for it has a stink- 

 ing odor that can be smelt twenty-four hours after it 

 has passed a place. They walk slowly when they know 

 they are followed, turn toward the hunter and expel 

 a urine so offensive that neither man nor beast dare 

 approach it. One day I killed one, my dog caught it, 

 and on bringing it to me some of this fell on my hunt- 

 ing suit. I was obliged to go home immediately. 

 Cleansed myself from head to foot and my clothes after 

 having been scoured had to be exposed to the air for 

 several days before this detestable odor disappeared. 

 I had intended examining this animal closely, but this 

 beginning caused me to decide that I did not care to 

 make a further study of it." 



Of the ordinary skunk, two sub-species have been rec- 

 ognized by scientists to be common to Louisiana. They are 

 the Louisiana skunk (Mephitis mesomelas) and the Florida 

 skunk (Memphitis elongata) . The latter is said to have a 

 distribution extending from the state for which it is named 

 west along the Gulf coast to the Mississippi river. It is of 

 a medium size, with a very long tail marked with white on 

 both sides, and possessing a white "pencil," as the end hairs 

 are termed, the white stripes on the sides of the body being 

 usually very broad. The Louisiana skunk's range is the 

 territory west of the Mississippi river to the coast of Texas, 

 to Matagorda Bay, and up the Red River Valley to Wichita 

 Falls. It is a small skunk, with a short tail, usually wholly 

 black, but when marked with white the stripes are rela- 

 tively narrow. 



