EXTERNAL CHARACTERS OF MEPHITIS MEPHITICA. 199 



hairs already described, but being sometimes continuous, when 

 the tail is mostly white. In the blackest tails seen, there is 

 always more or less white on the bases of the hairs. 



The foregoing may indicate the general range of variation 

 in color. Eeference to Audubon's figures of this species and 

 his supposed ''- macrura'''' will give a fair idea of two conditions 

 very nearly extreme. I have never seen an entirely black 

 Skunk, but in some specimens before me the white is reduced 

 to such mere traces that I have no doubt it may occasionally 

 disappear, as is stated by some. One young specimen has the 

 entire upper half of the body pure white, as in the strongest 

 cases of Conepatus, except a slight emargination from behind, 

 just at the root of the tail. Fully aware, as I am, of the end- 

 less variability, even in individuals belonging to the same 

 litter, I am satisfied that there is nevertheless a tendency, 

 generally well expressed, to increase of white, in a measure 

 according to certain geographical areas. An average in this 

 respect is the rule in the Eastern and Middle States, where we 

 have a fair frontal stripe and nuchal area sending out obliquely 

 stripes which do not reach the tail, this being black, only white 

 at the end or among the roots of the hairs. In Florida and the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States generally, the white is at a 

 minimum, frontalstripe a mere trace, nuchal spot small or broken 

 in two, and the stripes almost wanting. Throughout the West, 

 and in British America even as far east as Hudson's Bay, pro- 

 longation of the lateral stripes to the tail, or on this member to its 

 end, is the rule; and the stripes do not usually at once diverge 

 from the nuchal spot, but more gradually separate from a single 

 vertebral stripe, into which the nuchal spot is prolonged. As- 

 sociated with such a condition of the white, we find, almost 

 invariably, in the western forms, a much bushier tail, its width 

 across equalling or even exceeding its total length. Such cases 

 as these, in their minor diversities, have furnished the meso- 

 melas of Lichtenstein, varians of Gray, occidentalis of Baird, 

 and '•'' macroura'''' of Audubon. The figure of the last named 

 represents an extreme of white, with length and bushiness of 

 tail, and might readily be mistaken, as it was, for the altogether 

 different M. macrura of Lichtenstein. 



Independently of the size of the tail, we may observe a gen- 

 eral decrease in stature with latitude. Floridan specimens are 

 notably smaller than those from New England, some, appar- 

 ently full-grown, being little larger than JSpilogale at its maxi- 

 mum, about thirteen or fourteen inches long. 



