WOLVERINES AND SKUNKS 77 



It breaks open caches, raids cabins, and systematically 

 destroys everything it encounters. It is the only animal 

 living which maliciously and deliberately destroys property, 

 and soils food which it can neither eat nor carry away. It 

 steals articles which it cannot possibly use, and more than 

 once has been known to strip a cabin of nearly its entire 

 contents. 



In form this animal resembles a cross between a badger 

 and a bear. In Wyoming it is called the Skunk-Bear, and in 

 Washington the Indians call it the Mountain Devil. It in- 

 habits the northern Cascades and the Rocky Mountain region 

 of the United States as far south as Great Salt Lake, and the 

 whole of arctic and subarctic America to the northern limit 

 of trees. It is especially abundant on the Kuskokwim River, 

 Alaska. Its length is 32 + 10 inches. It is so very rare that 

 only about three thousand are caught annually in all North 

 America. 



THE SKUNKS form a large group, widely distributed, but 

 all the species, however much they differ in size or color, are 

 arranged in three genera. 



THE COMMON SKUNK,* to which eight other species are re- 

 lated, is very well known, chiefly because of its powerful odor, 

 its wide distribution, and its very conspicuous jet-black color, 

 divided on the back by one or two broad bands of white. 



The type of this group is practically confined to the United 

 States and Mexico, and is most abundant in the North. The 

 very offensive fluid which constitutes its defence against all 

 enemies is contained in two glands situated near the base of 



1 Meph'i-tis meph-it' i-ca. 



