MErtUTIS MEI'IUTICA. 



69 



By the time the eyes are open, they are covered with a beautiful 

 coat of g^lossy hair. The young females develop sooner than the 

 males, attaining their stature in ten months, while the males are 

 not full-grown until they are a year and a half old. It is noted that 

 in every litter one or the other sex predominates in numbers, there 

 being rarely half of them males and the other half females."* 



Subfamily Mepiiitin.E. 



MEPHITIS MEPHITICA (Sh.w) r.air.i. 



Skunk; Polecat; "Alaska Sa/>lc\" 



The Skunk is very common in the clearings anil settled districts 

 bordering this region, and is found, sparingly, throughout the Adiron- 

 dacks. 



He preys upon mice, salamanders, frogs, and the eggs of birds that 

 nest on, or within reach from, the ground. At times he eats carrion, 

 and if he chances to stumble upon a hen's nest the eggs are liable to 

 suffer; and once in a while he accjuires the evil habit of robbing the 

 hen-roost. Still, as a rule, Skunks are not addicted to this vice, and 

 it is with them very much as it is with dogs and cats; for every now 

 and then a dog will get into the hal)it of killing sheep, and a cat of 

 killing chickens and sucking eggs, and yet we do not wage a warfare 

 of extermination against them, collectively, on account of the sins of 

 a few of their number. 



Of all our native mammals perhaps no one is so universally abused, 

 and has so many unpleasant things said about it, as the innocent sub- 

 ject of the present biography; and yet no other species is half so val- 

 uable to the farmer. Pre-eminently an insect eater, he destroys more 

 beetles, grasshoppers, and the like than all our other mammals to- 

 gether, and in addition to these devours vast numbers of mice. 



He is not fond of extensive forests, but seeks the clearings and 

 pastures that surround the habitations of man, and not infrequently 



* Em-bearing Animals, 1S77, pp. 1S2-183. 



