THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 95 



off the roots so evenly and so thoroughly that 

 not a square foot of green remained in the whole 

 field. 



It was here that the skunk did his good work 

 (I say " the skunk," for there was only one on the 

 farm that summer, I think). I would go into the 

 field morning after morning to count the holes he 

 had made during the night in his hunt for the 

 grubs. One morning I got over a hundred holes, 

 all of them dug since last sundown, and each hole 

 representing certainly one grub, possibly more; 

 for the skunk would hear or smell his prey at 

 work in the soil before attempting to dig. 



A hundred grubs for one night, by one skunk ! 

 It took me only a little while to figure out the 

 enormous number of grubs that a fair-sized family 

 of skunks would destroy in a summer. A family 

 of skunks would rid my farm of the pest in a 

 single summer and make inroads on the grubs of 

 the entire community. 



Ah ! the community ! the ignorant, short- 

 sighted, nature-hating community ! What chance 

 had a family of skunks in this community ? And 

 the fire of my mission burned hot within me. 



And so did my desire for more skunks. My hay 



