2l6 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



animal life, and even carrion. "While occasional raids are made on 

 the poultry yards or on the nests of wild birds, their destruction of 

 insects and noxious mammals doubtless more than offsets any damage 

 they may do to poultry or game." "When grasshoppers are abundant," 

 skunks "feed extensively on these pests." 13 



Of 62 skunk stomachs (37 common skunks, 9 white-backed and 16 

 little spotted skunks), "grasshoppers and crickets formed a large per- 

 centage of the food of nearly half" of them ; beetles and their larvae 

 the most important item, found in two-thirds of the stomachs, in many 

 cases the only food; 15 had eaten injurious rodents (mice, rats, ground 

 squirrels and pocket gophers), carrion had been eaten by 3, lizards 

 and salamanders by 3, crayfish by 3, fungi by 2, earthworms by 2, fruit 

 by 6, centipedes by 2, sawflies by i, i contained cicadas only, and i con- 

 tained a feather. During an invasion of range caterpillars in New 

 Mexico they made up from 60 to 95 per cent of the food of skunks 

 examined. 14 



Of the contents of 10 skunk stomachs from California, examined 

 in the laboratory, 30.5 per cent was mammal remains (harmful mam- 

 mals 16.3 per cent, beneficial 1.4 per cent, neutral 12.8 per cent) ; 26.3 

 per cent insects (harmful 24.9 per cent) ; parasitic worms 10.4 per 

 cent; in 353 stomachs examined by licensed trappers, insects were 

 found in 207, rodents in 8, other mammals in 15, grass and roots in 

 100, fish in 5, reptile in i, birds in 27, fruit in 6, game in 4, livestock 

 in 14 beneficial habits 68 per cent, neutral 27 per cent, harmful 5 

 per cent. 15 The diet of the hog-nosed skunks (Conepatus) "is even 

 more largely made up of insects than is that of the others, especially 

 beetles, grubs and larvae, one containing 400 beetles." 16 



Three stomachs of non-captive skunks (Mephitis m. nigra} were 

 found to be badly parasitized with threadworms. One captive specimen 

 ate 134 field mice in one month, but was not fond of fish, frogs or 

 snakes and refused shrews and moles. 17 Skunks eat both wild and 

 domesticated bees and are accused of raiding apiaries, "which may 



13 Howell, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 45, p. 39, 1921. 



14 Lantz, Economic value of North American skunks, Farmers' Bull., No. 587, 

 1914. 



15 Dixon, Journ. Mammalogy, vi, 34-46, 1925. 



16 Seton, Lives of game animals, n, Part 2, p. 378, 1929, citing Nelson, Wild 

 animals of North America, p. 584, 1918. 



17 Shaw, The spring and summer activity of the dusky skunk in captivity, New 

 York State Museum Handbook, No. 4, pp. 11-92, 1928. 



