COMMON AMERICAN SKUNK. 323 



careful to avoid soiling bimself with this fluid, as the rattlesnake is, not 

 to suffer his body to come in contact with his poisonous fangs. 



Should the Skunk make a discharge from this all-conquering battery 

 during the day, the fluid is so thin and transparent that it is scarcely 

 perceptible, but at night it has a yellowish luminous appearance ; we 

 have noticed it on several occasions, and can find no more apt com- 

 parison than an attenuated stream of phosphoric light. That the spot 

 where a Skunk has been killed will be tainted for a considerable time, 

 is well known. At a place where one had been killed in autumn, 

 we remarked that the scent was still tolerably strong after the snows 

 had thawed away the following spring. Generally, however, the spot 

 thus scented by the Skunk is not particularly ofiensive after the expira- 

 tion of a week or ten days. The smell is more perceptible at night 

 and in damp weather, than during the day or in a drought. 



The properties of the peculiarly ofl'ensive liquor contained in the sacs 

 of the Skunk, have not, so far as we are advised, been fully ascertained. 

 It has, however, been sometimes applied to medical purposes. Professor 

 Ives, of New Haven, administered to an asthmatic patient a drop of this 

 fluid three times a day. The invalid was greatly benefitted: all his 

 secretions, however, were soon affected to such a degree, that he became 

 highly offensive both to himself and to those near him. He then dis- 

 continued the medicine, but after having been apparently well for some 

 timC the disease returned. He again called on the doctor for advice, — 

 the old and tried recipe was once more recommended, but the patient 

 declined taking it, declaring that the remedy was worse than the disease ! 



We were once requested by a venerable clergyman, an esteemed friend, 

 who had for many years been a martyr to violent paroxysms of asthma, 

 to procure for him the glands of a Skunk ; which, according to the pre- 

 scription of his medical adviser, were kept tightly corked in a smelling 

 bottle, which was applied to his nose when the symptoms of his disease 

 appeared. 



For some time he believed that he had found a specific for his dis- 

 tressing complaint ; we were however subsequently informed, that hav- 

 ing uncorked the bottle on one occasion while in the pulpit during 

 service, his congregation finding the smell too powerful for their olfacto- 

 ries, made a hasty retreat, leaving him nearly alone in the church. 



We are under an impression, that the difficultjr of preparing specimens 

 of this animal may be to a considerable extent obviated, by a proper 

 care in capturing it. If it has been worried and killed by a dog, skin- 

 ning a recent specimen is almost insupportable ; but if killed by a sudden 

 blow, or shot in a vital part, so as to produce instant death, the Skunk 



