30 ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
COAT OF LITTLE STRIPED SKUNK 
Commonly called by the fur trade “‘civet cat.’’ In the southern 
and southwestern United States the species which furnished this 
contribution isfrequently called the “shydrophobia "skunk, because 
its bite sometimes results in death from hydrophobia. It contains 
about 90 skins. Value, $225. 
The killing of game for food and sport is, in 
all conscience, bad enough; but much has been 
accomplished by the valiant army of defense to 
check, and in places prohibit, that line of exter- 
mination. Here and there, in wild life preserves 
both great and small, protection really has be- 
gun to protect, and over an aggregate area of 
many thousand square miles many important 
species now are safe from total extinction, at 
least in the tomorrow of our time. 
Tue Human DEMAND FoR F'uR 
Thirty thousand years ago the cave men of 
the temperate zone were the first wearers of 
fur garments. It is very unlikely, however, that 
the Neanderthal Woman ever descended to the 
zoological depths that now are being explored 
by the modern fur trader in quest of wearable 
fur. 
Imagine the feelings of a respectable Chey- 
enne squaw if she were asked by the lord of 
her teepee to make for him a coat of 300 gopher 
Even twenty-five years ago the lowly 
skunk was safe from the trapper; but today 
Mephitis mephitica is “the darling of the gods,” 
and zoological nightmares of undyed striped 
skunk skins now are seen at large on our streets 
sheltering and adorning full-grown girls. 
skins. 
If the amazing high prices of fur that pre- 
vailed in the winter of 1919 and 1920 had held 
for five years, the fur question would have 
answered itself. In five years all species of 
fur-bearing animals surely would have been 
exterminated. Thanks to the long and hard fall 
in fur prices that in the last half of 1920 gave 
the fur market a terrific jolt, the fur-bearers 
may be about twenty years in reaching extinc- 
tion. The annual slaughter will be terrible; but 
who is going to attempt to resist the demands of 
vanity, selfishness and greed when made in the 
sacred name of “Fashion”? 
When ‘“‘summer furs” are in fashion ‘summer 
furs’” must be worn, regardless of midsummer 
heat. The girl who can lay bare her legs and 
her sternum in winter will not balk at furs in 
the dog-days of August. 
At present our interest in the slaughter of the 
fur-bearers is purely academic. We know that 
it is useless for us to tilt against the impreg- 
nable walls of the citadels of fashion. The 
truly fashionable woman is a cruel animal, just 
as game-hogs and pot-hunters are among men. 
It is useless to try to convince a man with plenty 
of money that the best of wool is as warm as the 
poorest fur; hence the “fur” or ‘“‘fur-lined” 
overcoat—walking graveyard of wild life. Dame 
Fashion has not yet decreed that skulls, leg- 
bones and strings of vertebrae shall now be worn 
with furs as additional trimmings. 
The killing of wild animals for their fur and 
skins has gone on ever since the days when the 
fur-bearers outnumbered the fur-wearers by fifty 
to one, and the wearers sought and used only 
the best. Then, the annual balance between 
supply and demand was far within the factor 
of safety. Humanitarians cheerfully condoned 
the cruelties of trapping, because men and 
women sorely needed fur garments. Man him- 
self has been from the first a predatory animal, 
and even today you may, if you watch, see the 
strange spectacle of a gentleman wrapped in a 
