78 CARNIVORES. 
fatal.” It has been stated that the secretion is not only used as a means of defence 
but also as a means of attracting these animals towards one another. This, 
however, is strenuously denied by Dr. Merriam. 
Of the lasting and pernicious effects of even a drop of skunk secretion, no 
more striking instance exists than one recently published by Mr. W. H. Hudson, 
who writes of the South-American species. This observer relates, as a not 
uncommon event on the Argentine pampas, that a settler starts one evening to 
ride to a dance at a neighbour’s house. “It is a dark windy evening, but there is 
a convenient bridle-path through the dense thicket of giant thistles, and striking 
it he puts his horse into a swinging gallop. Unhappily the path is already 
occupied by a skunk, invisible in the darkness, that, in obedience to the promptings 
of its insane instinct, refuses to get out of it, until the flying hoofs hit it and send 
it like a well-kicked football into the thistles. But the fore-feet of the horse, up 
as high as his knees perhaps, have been sprinkled, and the rider, after coming out 
into the open, dismounts and walks away twenty yards from his animal, and 
literally smells himself all over, and with a feeling of profound relief pronounces 
himself clean. Not the minutest drop of the diabolical spray has touched his 
dancing-shoes. Springing into the saddle he proceeds to his journey’s end, and is 
warmly welcomed by his host. In a little while people begin exchanging whispers 
and significant glances; ... ladies cough and put their handkerchiefs to their 
noses, and presently begin to feel faint and retire from the room. Our hero begins 
to notice that there is something wrong, and presently discovers its cause; 
he, unhappily, has been the last person to remark that familiar but most 
abominable odour, rising like a deadly exhalation from the floor, conquering all 
other odours, and every moment becoming more powerful. A drop has touched 
his shoe after all.” 
Fossil remains of skunks belonging to the same genus as the 
species still inhabiting the country are met with in the caverns of 
Lagoa Santa in Brazil, where they are accompanied by those of a number of other 
animals of totally extinct types. 
Fossil Skunks. 
THE CAPE POLECAT. 
Genus [ctonyx. 
As will be apparent at a glance from our illustration, the South-African 
animal, commonly known as the Cape polecat (Ictonyx zorilla), is so like a small 
skunk in coloration and general appearance that it might well be taken for a 
member of the same group. Although the number of the teeth in the present 
animal is the same as in the skunks, the teeth themselves are relatively smaller than 
in the latter, with smaller cusps, and are thus more like those of the polecat, between 
which and the skunks the Cape polecat appears to form a kind of connecting link. 
A skull of the present animal may be readily distinguished from that of a skunk 
by the upper molar tooth being smaller, instead of larger, than the flesh-tooth. 
In size the Cape polecat agrees approximately with the true polecat, and has a 
somewhat similarly-shaped body, and proportionately short limbs. The head is 
