234 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



with the carelessness of a Musketeer of the Guard; 

 and when the commotion brings the farmer and 

 his gun, it is ten to one whether he make a single 

 intelligent effort to get away. As a matter of fact, 

 roost-robbery is only an occasional wickedness; 

 or, more truly, perhaps, it is only a few skunks who 

 adopt the habit of raiding the poultry-yard, and the 

 total of his depredations does not amount to a tithe 

 of the return he makes by his nocturnal activity 

 among the gophers, mice, and injurious insects. 

 Moreover, he has to bear the blame of most of 

 the misdeeds of the more stealthy and sagacious 

 fox, marten, and weasel. 



What are the skunk's natural enemies ? Well, 

 like other of the smaller mammals, he must suffer 

 from the attacks of the larger ones, though it is 

 customary to assert but this is largely an assump- 

 tion open to dispute that he is not so frequently 

 seized as would be another animal equally tooth- 

 some and incautious, by the puma, wild-cats, wolves, 

 and large hawks and owls, all of which do some- 

 times kill and eat him. He must now and then 

 get into fatal quarrels with the fox, badger, fisher, 

 mink, and other weasels with which he comes into 

 competition and contact, but against which he can 

 make a pretty nearly equal fight, regardless of his 

 quick-firing battery. 



This suggests some interesting speculations as 

 to the actual value to the animal of its peculiar 

 defensive armature. One would think, consider- 



