The Mephitic Skunk. 119 



all over South and North America. Professor 

 Baird gravely introduces it into his great work on 

 the mammalia. I was once talking about animals 

 in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine 

 officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encamp- 

 ment, he had asked the savages how they contrived 

 to kill skunks without making even a life in the 

 desert intolerable. A grave old Cacique informed 

 him that the secret was to go boldly up to the 

 animal, take it by the tail, and despatch it ; for, he 

 said, when you fear it not at all, then it respects 

 your courage and dies like a lamb sweetly. The 

 officer, continuing his story, said that on quitting 

 the Indian camp he started a skunk, and, glad of an 

 opportunity to test the truth of what he had heard, 

 dismounted and proceeded to put the Indian plan 

 in practice. Here the story abruptly ended, and 

 when I eagerly demanded to hear the sequel, the 

 amateur hunter of furs lit a cigarette and vacantly 

 watched the ascending smoke. The Indians are 

 grave jokers, they seldom smile ; and this old tra- 

 ditional skunk-joke, which has run the length of a 

 continent, finding its way into many wise books, is 

 their revenge on a superior race. 



I have shot a great many eagles, and occasionally 

 a carancho (Polyborus tharus), with the plumage 

 smelling strongly of skunk, which shows that these 

 birds, pressed by hunger, often commit the fearful 

 mistake of attacking the animal. My friend Mr. 

 Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a communica- 

 tion to the Ibis, describes an encounter he actually 

 witnessed between a carancho and a skunk. Riding 

 home one afternoon, he spied a skunk " shuffling 



