84 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



patica, as spring's harbingers; but never a line yet 

 to celebrate this first forerunner of them all, the 

 gentle early skunk. For it is his presence, blown 

 far across the February snow, that always ends 

 my New England winter and brings the spring. 

 Of course there are difficulties, poetically, with 

 the wood-pussy. I don't remember that even 

 Whitman tried the theme. But, perhaps, the good 

 gray poet never met a spring skunk in the streets 

 of Camden. The animal is comparatively rare in 

 the densely populated cities of New Jersey. 



It is rare enough here in Massachusetts; at 

 least, it used to be; though I think, from my 

 observations, that the skunk is quietly on the 

 increase in New England. I feel very sure of this 

 as regards the neighborhood immediate to my 

 farm. 



This is an encouraging fact, but hard to be 

 believed, no doubt. I, myself, was three or four 

 years coming to the conviction, often fearing 

 that this little creature, like so many others of 

 our thinning woods, was doomed to disappear. 

 But that was before I turned to keeping hens. I 

 am writing these words as a naturalist and 

 nature-lover, and I am speaking also with the 



