L'!»S 



VERTEBRATA. 



hero. When Bettled in Litchfield, in the earlier days of Iris long and useful career, he was one 

 evening returning home, cam ing w ith him a quarto \ olume of Ree's Encyclopedia, then in course 

 of publication in Philadelphia, and regarded as the Herculean enterprise of the American press 

 for the dawning nineteenth century. A- he went along, he saw before him a skunk, which, 

 instead of hurrying its |>aee, or getting cut of the way, seemed rather defiantly 1" flourish his 

 tail and linger in the path. Upon this, the Reverend Doctor hurled the Cyclopedia at him, in 

 revenge of which the skunk opened his battery, and took the imprudent and astonished divine 

 between wind and water. Doctor Beecher reached home in a dreadful plight, and it may well 

 be guessed that he did nol forgel the incident Some years after, an abusive pamphlet was pub- 

 lished against him by Bome sectarian, and the doctor was advised to reply to it. "No, no," said 

 he. with equal wit and good sense; u no; I once discharged a quarto at a skunk and got the 

 worst of it I am nol likely to try it again." 



It is said that inhaling skunk's odor has been prescribed with good effect in asthmatic affeo- 

 tions: in one instance, however, a man who had taken it for this malady, and was benefited, wai 

 so impregnate.! with the smell as to be offensive to himself and his friends. On its being recom- 



CALIFOHNIA SKLNK. 



mended to him a second time, he declined taking it, saying the remedy was worse than the i 



. [n another case, a clergyman affected with asthma had a bottle of skunk's liquid, which 

 he uncorked and put to his nose, vn hen he was attacked with a paroxysm. One day, while preach- 

 ing, he felt an attack, and so opened his bottle and took a whiff. Instantly the whole sanctuary 

 was filled with the effluvia, and the congregation spontaneously took to flight: a melancholy evi- 

 dence, no doubt, alike of the levity of sinners and the strength of the odor, inasmuch as even the 

 "wrath to come" was forgotten in a present momentary disgust. It appears that good old Katie I 

 Charlevoix, in christening this animal the "Child of the Devil," had theological as well as - 

 timental grounds for the piquanl nomenclature. 



The Tk\ w ShivK, the .1/. ■//irsolciira of Litchtenstein, and M. nasuta of Bennett, resembles th< 

 Common skunk in form, size, and habits. The whole of the hack, from the forehead to the nun]',' 

 and including the tail, i> covered with white hair, extending half down the sides; the under parte 

 ..re a hhekish brown. The line of division between the light and dark colors is so sharply defined 

 a- to give the animal the appearance of having two distinct sorts of skin. It is found on the 



