218 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
Southern relatives are also black and white, but 
differently marked. All the skunks form a con- 
spicuous exception to the prevalent rule among 
mammals that those parts of the body next the 
ground are light, the belly and limbs here being 
invariably dark colored. Thoreau pictures the 
animal neatly in a June memorandum : 
“ Saw a little skunk coming up the river bank in 
the woods at the white oak, a funny little fellow, 
about six inches long and nearly as broad. It 
faced me and actually compelled me to retreat 
before it for five minutes. Perhaps I was between 
it and its hole. Its broad black tail, tipped with 
white, was erect like a kitten’s. It had what 
looked like a broad white band drawn tight across 
its forehead or top-head, from which two lines of 
white ran down, one on each side of its back, and 
there was a narrow white line down its snout. It 
raised its back, sometimes ran a few feet forward, 
sometimes backward, and repeatedly turned its tail 
to me, prepared to discharge its fluid, like the old 
ones. Such was its instinct, and all the while it 
kept up a fine grunting like a little pig or a red 
squirrel.” 
This resemblance to a fluffy-tailed black and 
white kitten has played the mischief with many 
kind-hearted but unsophisticated persons, —a reac- 
tionary sort of mimicry that it would puzzle Dar- 
winians to explain, I fear. As a matter of fact, 
these youngsters are much more to be dreaded 
