Vill THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 219 
than an old skunk, who will not waste his precious 
ammunition until he has exhausted every “ bluff” 
he can practise. 
This composure in the presence of mankind, 
from whom nearly all wild animals shrink and flee, 
has always been ascribed to the creature’s confi- 
dence in his means of self-defence, which grows 
upon him with experience, and inculcates a temer- 
ity in the face of danger that often misleads to 
his destruction. Even in the skunk discretion is 
usually the better part of valor: as it certainly is as 
opposed to him. Whether or not the explanation 
is good, he is certainly fearless and often serene 
in the midst of danger; he will not trouble him- 
self to move out of the way of a wagon fast enough 
to save being run over; and half the time will 
come inquisitively toward you, when you meet him, 
instead of running away. 
One effect of this audacity has been the ten- 
dency of skunks to cultivate acquaintance with 
humanity as fast as the country was settled, — in 
fact, before that, for they haunted Indian camps, 
no doubt, in the primitive East as they do to-day in 
the far West. Originally they possessed the whole 
of temperate North America, reached northward 
as far as the Barren Grounds in the interior, and 
in Alaska to the lower Yukon valley; while south- 
ward they penetrated Mexico, although that un- 
happy country and its neighboring parts of the 
United States have several smaller, but sufficiently 
