Hudsonian Skunk 979 



fearful precision. As a matter of fact, I think the Skunk 

 rarely fires straight backward. Its gun can be trained in any 

 direction or at any elevation, but it prefers to aim at a foe that 

 it can clearly see. 



Usually it is careful to keep its coat and tail clear of the 

 fluid ; it never deliberately shoots without elevating the tail and 

 clearing the deck. This has given rise to the belief that it 

 cannot shoot with the tail down. Some even maintain that a 

 Skunk may be safely lifted by the tail, as such handling puts 

 the gun out of gear. I doubt not Skunks have suffered their 

 captors to lift them by the tail without retaliating, but I am 

 satisfied it was choice, not incompetence, that restrained them. 



Although Skunk musk is so potent as to nauseate many 

 animals, to choke some and blind others, it is a curious fact, as 

 every hunter knows, that a hound while running a Rabbit, may 

 run into a Skunk and be so soaked with the musk that he flies 

 in agony to the nearest stream to roll in the mud and wash 

 his burning eyes and nostrils, then, within ten minutes, though 

 still stinking unspeakably, he will take up the faint Rabbit 

 trail again. I do not know how to explain this. 



It is often said that clothing once skunked will smell for- 

 ever. This is a mistake; the odour is strong and durable but 

 can be destroyed. The usual method is to bury the tainted 

 garments. But a better and simpler way is to send them to 

 the cleaner — provided he will accept them — and there the 

 benzine method may be relied on to destroy all traces of the 

 'child of the devil,' as our French neighbours call the Skunk. 



While I was living in a shanty at Yancey's in the Yellow- inof- 

 stone Park, in 1897, a family of Skunks of this species made ness 

 their home under the floor. They came out every evening to 

 pick up scraps about the door or climb into garbage pails in 

 search of eatables. They would even venture into the house 

 when the door was left open. But no one molested them, even 

 the dog refrained, so that the summer passed without offence. 



Late one evening, I caught a couple of them in a box-trap 

 in order to keep them till the light was better, that I might take 



