CARNIVORA 215 



tivity, skunk farming has not proved profitable except when prices are 

 high, 9 and they fluctuate greatly. 



It is difficult to obtain complete and reliable statistics as to skunk 

 furs, owing to the fact that in many lists some skunk furs are included 

 under the name civet cat, a name that is applied not only to the true 

 civet cats of the Old World, but also to the American spotted skunks 

 and the bassarisks, thus including members of three distinct families. 

 Skunks were protected by law in 34 states, with open seasons of from 

 one and one-half to six months each year, in certain counties in one 

 statCj and there was no protection in 14 states in 1925. 10 



It jias been said that skunks are more valuable alive as rodent and 

 insect destroyers, than dead for their furs. They "are among the most 

 useful of our carnivorous mammals, though often destroyed in the 

 belief that they are injurious;" the main part of their food is insects, 

 but they take also mice and gophers ; "when mice become excessively 

 numerous, skunks feed upon them almost exclusively," and poultry 

 may be protected from them by properly-built, skunk-proof poultry 

 yards and buildings. 11 



"Of our larger mammals, skunks certainly are the greatest enemies 

 of insects. Army worms, tobacco worms and white grubs are the 

 favorite prey of these animals. In Manitoba, Mr. Norman Criddle, field 

 officer, Canadian Entomological Service, estimated that on one eight- 

 acre tract skunks destroyed 14,520 white grubs to the acre. Cutworms, 

 the potato beetle and grasshoppers are other insect pests eaten by 

 skunks, and the common eastern skunk once proved so efficient an 

 enemy of the hop grub in New York that the first legislation protecting 

 the animal in that state was passed at the demand of hop growers. 

 Investigations in New Mexico by the U. S. Biological Survey showed 

 skunks also to be the most important natural enemies of the range 

 grasshopper." 1 



The food of the common striped skunks (Mephitis) is largely insects 

 and small rodents, but they take also reptiles, amphibians or any small 



9 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 181, 1926. Howell, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 20, 

 p. n, 1901. 



10 Ashbrook, Trapping laws and the fur supply, Journ. Mammalogy, vi, 168-173, 

 1925- 



11 Bailey, Farmers' Bull., No. 335, p. 28, 1908. Seton, Lives of game animals, n, 

 Part 2, pp. 384-397, 1929, quoting Pellett, Forest and Stream, May 14, 1910, p. 772. 

 Nelson, Wild animals of North America, p. 578, 1918. Brook, Recreation, 1899, 

 p. 255. 



12 McAtee, The role of vertebrates in the control of insect pests, Ann. Kept. 

 Smithsonian Inst. for 1925, p. 416. 



