INTRODUCING MR. AND MRS. SKUNK 33 



At just what age the fighting apparatus of a 

 young skunk functions there is no safe way of 

 judging. If an enemy or an intruder appear near 

 a young skunk before his defensive machinery 

 has developed the youngster strikes an impres- 

 sive attitude, puts up a black-plumed tail, and 

 runs an effective bluff. 



I came upon a black bear, who had guessed 

 wrong, just a few minutes after he had charged 

 a pair of young skunks. His tracks showed 

 that he had paused to look at them and do a 

 little thinking before he charged. He had ad- 

 vanced, stopped, stood behind a rock pile and 

 debated the matter. The skunks were young 

 but just how young? Perhaps he had tasted 

 delicious young skunk, and possibly he had not 

 yet taken a skunk seriously. When I came up 

 he was rubbing his face against a log and had 

 already taken a dive in the brook. 



A fox came into the scene where I was watch- 

 ing an entire skunk family. In his extrava- 

 gantly rich robe he was handsome as he stood 

 in the shadow close to a young skunk. With- 

 out seeing the mother, he leaped to seize the 

 youngster. But he swerved in the air as he 

 met the old skunk's acid test. Regardless of 

 his thousand-dollar fur, he rolled, thrashed, and 

 tumbled about in the bushes and in the mud 

 flat by a brook. 



