CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



295 



Mount Prahu to Blederan, a village on the declivity of that hill, where the temperature was more 

 moderate. It was tied to a small stake, and moved about quietly, burrowing the ground with its 

 snout and feet, as if searching for food, without noticing the bystanders or making violent efforts 

 to disengage itself. It ate voraciously of earth-worms which Avere brought to it, and held one 

 extremity of a worm in its claws while its teeth were employed in tearing the other. After it had 

 eaten ten or twelve, it became drowsy, made a small groove in the earth, in which it placed its 

 snout, and, having deliberately composed itself, soon slept soundly. 



THE SKUNK. 



Genus MOUFETTE, or SKUNK : Mephitis. — The animals of this genus are confined to 

 America — the Zorilla of the Cape and Mydaus ot the Asiatic islands, sometimes called skunks, 

 really belonging to other and distinct genera. Three species are known in the United States, and 

 several in Mexico and South America. Thus the race extends from Hudson's Bay to the Straits 

 of Magellan. They resemble the badgers in being nearly plantigrade, and having the anterior 

 claws long and adapted for digging. There is a similarity also in the distribution of the colors, 

 the dark shades forming the ground, and the light ones the mailings. The hair of the body is 

 long, and still longer on the tail, which being carried erect, has a plume-like appearance. Some 

 of the species burrow in the ground, and others live in the fissures of rocks, several of them often 

 associating together. They subsist chiefly on birds' eggs, insects, small quadrupeds, and poultry; 

 they also add frogs, mice, and lizards to their bill of fare when opportunity offers. Their size is 

 about that of the badger. They move slowly, and seldom attempt to escape from man by flight. 

 The form is elegant, and the colors, disposed in longitudinal bands, are strikingly contrasted. 

 These circumstances, with the long, flowing hair, would give these animals a beautiful appearance, 

 were not all agreeable associations rendered impossible by their abominable stench. The great 

 distinction of the genus is the possession of two glands beneath the anus, from which they eject, 

 to a considerable distance, a liquid possessing the revolting odor of the polecat, with a suffocating 

 and overpowering smell of garlic. This is alike intolerable to man and animals. Dogs retreat from 

 this abominable liquid, vomiting and rolling themselves, as if in agony, on the earth, and.it is 

 said even cattle bellow with distress when the air is strongly impregnated with it. A skunk will 

 *taint the atmosphere for half a mile in every direction, and clothes infested by the liquid are 

 ruined, as they never part with the disgusting fragrance. This gift is the animal's shield and 

 buckler, and nature, in her infinitely diversified arts of defense, appears nowhere — not in trench- 

 ant teeth, or rending claws; not in overpowering strength, or ferocity, or even deadly venom — 



