Feb. 15, 1912 



coops near the house were carefully Inclosed. 

 However, one night one of the coops was 

 not as diligently looked after as it should 

 have been, for the door was left a little apart, 

 and through the opening a skunk made its 

 way. What a slaughter of innocents there 

 was that night! There were sixteen well- 

 grown young chickens and their mother in 

 the enclosure that night; and of the lot, 

 fourteen young ones were found dead in the 

 morning. One had been caught by the 

 maurauder, but escaped with a small cut on 

 the back of its head. All those killed had 

 been bitten on the back of the head at the 

 base of the brain. 



Such slaughter roused my dander. The 

 Irish in me was up, and I was bent on get- 

 ting that skunk or "bust." And I got him! 

 And it is with much pride and delight that 

 I herewith joresent a picture of the dead 

 skunk and some of the fine chickens he so 

 ruthlessly murdered, together with several 

 of the traps that were set that night to cap- 

 ture him. The trap that "did the work " 

 was a small steel-jaw trap that was set in 

 the center of the large coop in which the 

 chickens had been killed the night previous. 

 About a foot above the trap one of the dead 

 chickens was suspended by a wire. I be- 

 lieved that the skunk would return again 

 to kill more chickens or else claim his prey, 

 and I gave him this opportunity to claiin 

 the one that was hung up in so tantalizing 

 a way, and he was bent on getting it. He 

 danced into the trap; the trigger was sprung, 

 and the skunk firmly held by one leg until 

 he was duly killed in the morning by 

 George. 



Since then I have lost no more young 

 chickens, that I am aware of, by skunks, 

 though we have set traps for them now and 

 then. Only one has since been caught, and 

 that was a few weeks ago when one was se- 

 cured in the large box trap that was set to 

 catch rats. And here I might remark that 

 this trap is the best rat-catcher I ever knew; 

 it gets the rats when all the wire and other 

 traps fail. I suppose it is such an innocent- 

 looking old thing that the most wary old 

 rat is thrown off his guard, and walks into 

 the box to nibble at the bait, which is usu- 

 ally a piece of old raw or decayed meat. 



Oakland, Cal. 



CAUGHT IN THE ACT. 



A "Tame" Skunk Eats Bees. 



BY J. D. YANCEY. 



One day last summer, late in the after- 

 noon, my sister being out in the apiary, 

 called to me to come to the aid of my bees 

 before they were all devoured. Of course I 

 came on the double-quick, and you may 

 imagine my surprise as I passed around the 



113 



corner of the kitchen to behold a skunk, al- 

 most as big as a badger, near the entrance 

 of the second hive, calmly eating bees. I 

 was so angered at his cool impudence that 

 if I had had a club in my hands, I would 

 have— on the spur of the moment— "lam- 

 med him one" good and proper. But on 

 second thought I knew this would not be 

 the best policy so near the dwelling. 



While I stood watching him he finished 

 devouring the first bee; and, running up on 

 the alighting board, seized another from the 

 crowded entrance, rolled it under his front 

 paws on the alighting-board, then backed 

 off to a safe distance and proceeded to eat 

 it, beginning at the head and finishing it to 

 the tip, sting and all. The skunk seems 

 capable of running backward with as much 

 celerity as forward; and his movements as 

 he runs up and grabs a bee, smashes it with 

 his fore feet and then backs off, are made so 

 rapidly as to seem almost automatic in ac- 

 tion. 



The bees seemed to be angered very much 

 by his murderous assaults, but for some rea- 

 son they would not attack him; in fact, in 

 a few minutes they became so intimidated 

 that they every one disappeared into the 

 hiv^e. Mr. Skunk, however, had evidently 

 robbed bee-hives before, for he knew exactly 

 how to proceed. Running up again to the 

 entrance, he drummed on the floor of the 

 hive making a noise much as you would by 

 drumming lightly on a hive with your 

 knuckles. This caused two or three bees to 

 dart out of the hive, and one of them was 

 promptly seized. In his eagerness, how- 

 ever, he lowered his head too near the busi- 

 ness end of the bee and received the sting 

 full in the end of the nose. Well, Mr. 

 Skunk was certainly .surprised, and he drop- 

 ped that bee just as if it had been red-hot. 

 He seemed to think the scraping motion 

 was the proper scheme for removing stings, 

 for he backed off about ten feet as fast as he 

 could go, scraping his nose on the ground 

 and sneezingasif he had taken a w^hiff from 

 a pepper-box. 



^lay be you think that gave him enough; 

 but he seemed to be following the advice of 

 those bee-keepers who tell you to scrape out 

 the sting and forget about it at once and it 

 will cease hurting promptly. 



Being a little leary about tackling the 

 same hive again, he next came to the hive 

 near which I was standing and caught a 

 couple of bees, stopping to eat them so near 

 me that I could have kicked him — had I 

 been so minded, of course. Once he ceased 

 operations, and, sitting up on his hind feet, 

 gave me an impudent stare, as much as to 

 say, "If you don't like it, help yourself." 



I suppose he did not like the flavor of the 

 bees from this last hive, for he soon went 

 back to scratching in the entrance of the 

 first; but the bees appeared to be thorough- 

 ly cowed, for none of them would venture 

 forth, and after a few more futile efforts his 

 Skunkship took himself off into the fast- 

 gathering darkness, and I saw him no more. 



Bridgeport, Wash. 



