ENCOUNTERS WITH SKUNKS. 207 



I was once quail-shooting in Washington County, 

 Texas, and was, as usual, mounted on my shooting 

 pony. !My pointer stood in some rough grass, and 

 as some quail had settled there or thereabouts — and 

 I knew how closely they often lay — I made my horse 

 trample the grass. All at once I saw it was a skunk, 

 and before I could wheel my pony out of harm's- 

 way, the skunk saluted his forelegs and breast with 

 the contents of the glands under its tail, and for 

 three weeks afterwards my horse had a rest — so foully 

 was it scented. 



Long afterwards, in Brazoria County, two or three 

 friends and myself were * driving deer ' with hounds. 

 After killing a deer or two, H — — , the master of the 

 hounds, said he would ' drive ' another part of the 

 forest. As we rode along, H — — observed a skunk, 

 and, fearful that it might injure the hounds by de- 

 stroying their scenting powers, he jumped down to 

 shoot it, and cast it with a stick into a thicket. The 



skunk was not quite dead when H tried to put 



in practice the last part of his plan ; and in its expiring 

 efforts it threw some of its secretion upon H.'s nether 



garments. On our return at night, Mrs. H , who 



had prepared a sumptuous backwoods' dinner for the 

 party, smelt the inexpressibles, and, turning to her hus- 

 band, desired him to turn out the dog which had been 

 killing a skunk ; for the good woman supposed that — 

 ' The staghounds, "sveary of the chase,' 



X 



