MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. 95 
‘course. Every country boy has had his more or less mem- 
orable encounter with the animal in question. A sort of legen- 
dary terror adds imagined danger to such escapades, for in 
reality one has but to behave as composedly as the Mephitis 
certainly will, to escape discomfiture. If it be really necessary 
to remove such a neighbor, it is easy to take him in a trap set 
at the mouth of the burrow, though it then becomes a question 
how to dispose of the prize. A well directed charge of shot is 
perhaps the surest way to avoid unpleasant consequences. 
When taken in a trap, however, a skillful person can safely 
administer a quietus with a staff, by striking upon the head, 
especially if the foot is placed upon the tail. A properly con- 
structed ‘‘deadfall” is a convenient way of at once trapping 
and killing the animal. If, for any reason, firearms are un- 
available, the animal when trapped may be disposed of as sug- 
gested by C. L. Whitman in The Forest and Stream, 1876. 
‘‘My favorite method of dealing with them is as follows: 
With a tough annealed No. 15 or 16 iron wire I form a slip- 
noose about five inches in diameter and a standing loop of two 
inches on the other, and a space of five inches between. The 
loop is attached to the smaller end of a light, stiff pole of eight 
or ten feet in length. With this firmly grasped in both hands, 
I slowly and carefully approach, and slip the noose over his 
head, and with a quick jerk backwards and upwards, lift him 
as high as the chain of the trap will allow, and thus hold him 
until he is strangled. . . . If the jerk upward has not been 
adroitly made, the wire may not draw as tight as it ought; in 
which case a discharge of the pungent odor will usually follow, 
but in this perpendicular position the discharge descends 
directly downwards, so that if the attack has been made from 
the windward, as it ought, there is no danger. The approach 
is sometimes resented at first, but the gradual arching of the 
tail gives timely warning, and a careful retreat is necessary 
fora moment. The second or third attempt is successful. The 
animal by that time recovers from the alarm, and at most will 
merely sniff the air in your direction. With this device I have 
destroyed many hundred during the past thirty years, and do 
not recollect an instance where I bore any of the odor about 
me, except I had inadvertently trod upon dirt that was defiled.” 
We pass to description of the external appearance and color- 
ation. The coloration is the point which first attracts atten- 
tion, and is sufficiently characteristic that there need never be 
any hesitation in referring the animal to this genus. The 
