7 8 CARNIVORES. 



fatal." It has been stated that the secretion is not only used as a means of defence 



but also as a means of attracting these animals towards one another. This, 



however, is strenuously denied by Dr. Merriam. 



Of the lasting and pernicious effects of even a drop of skunk secretion, no 



more striking instance exists than one recently published by Mr. W. H. Hudson, 



who writes of the South-American species. This observer relates, as a not 



uncommon event on the Argentine pampas, that a settler starts one evening to 



ride to a dance at a neighbour's house. " It is a dark windy evening, but there is 



a convenient bridle-path through the dense thicket of giant thistles, and striking 



it he puts his horse into a swinging gallop. Unhappily the path is already 



occupied by a skunk, invisible in the darkness, that, in obedience to the promptings 



of its insane instinct, refuses to get out of it, until the flying hoofs hit it and send 



it like a well-kicked football into the thistles. But the fore-feet of the horse, up 



as high as his knees perhaps, have been sprinkled, and the rider, after coming out 



into the open, dismounts and walks away twenty yards from his animal, and 



literally smells himself all over, and with a feeling of profound relief pronounces 



himself clean. Not the minutest drop of the diabolical spray has touched his 



dancing-shoes. Springing into the saddle he proceeds to his journey's end, and is 



warmly welcomed by his host. In a little while people begin exchanging whispers 



and significant glances ; . . . ladies cough and put their handkerchiefs to their 



noses, and presently begin to feel faint and retire from the room. Our hero begins 



to notice that there is something wrong, and presently discovers its cause ; 



he, unhappily, has been the last person to remark that familiar but most 



abominable odour, rising like a deadly exhalation from the floor, conquering all 



other odours, and every moment becoming more powerful. A drop has touched 



his shoe after all." 



Fossil remains of skunks belonging; to the same genus as the 

 Fossil Skunks 



species still inhabiting the country are met with in the caverns of 



Lagoa Santa in Brazil, where they are accompanied by those of a number of other 



animals of totally extinct types. 



The Cape Polecat. 

 Genus Ictonyx. 



As will be apparent at a glance from our illustration, the South-African 

 animal, commonly known as the Cape polecat {Ictonyx zorilla), is so like a small 

 skunk in coloration and general appearance that it might well be taken for a 

 member of the same group. Although the number of the teeth in the present 

 animal is the same as in the skunks, the teeth themselves are relatively smaller than 

 in the latter, with smaller cusps, and are thus more like those of the polecat, between 

 which and the skunks the Cape polecat appears to form a kind of connecting link. 

 A skull of the present animal may be readily distinguished from that of a skunk 

 by the upper molar tooth being smaller, instead of larger, than the flesh-tooth. 



In size the Cape polecat agrees approximately with the true polecat, and has a 

 somewhat similarly-shaped body, and proportionately short limbs. The head is 



