226 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
beating your hand with a whisk-broom, when the 
farm-dog has discovered his retreat in the stone 
fence.” Rowland Robinson tells us that: “The 
voiceless creature sometimes . . . frightens the 
belated farm-boy, whom he curiously follows with 
a mysterious hollow beating of his feet upon the 
ground.” Thoreau, as has been mentioned, heard 
one keep up a “fine grunting, like a little pig or a 
squirrel’; but he seems to have misunderstood 
altogether a singular loud patting sound heard 
repeatedly on the frozen ground under the wall, 
which he also listened to, for he thought it “had to 
do with getting its food, patting the earth to get 
the insects or worms.’”’ Probably he would have 
omitted this guess if he could have edited his 
diary instead of leaving that to be done after his 
death. The patting is evidently merely a nervous 
sign of impatience or apprehension, similar to the 
well-known stamping with the hind feet indulged 
in by rabbits, —in this case probably a menace 
like a doubling of the fists, as the hind legs, with 
which they kick, are their only weapons. The 
skunk, then, is not voiceless, but its voice is weak 
and querulous, and it is rarely if ever heard ex- 
cept in the expression of anger. But I wish to 
quote a few more sentences from Dr. Merriam’s 
story of his pet Meph: 
“His nest was in a box at the foot of the stairs, 
and before he grew strong enough to climb out by 
himself he would, whenever he heard me coming, 
