VIII THE SKUNK, CALMLY CONSIDERED 229 
every agricultural district in the Union, each year, 
than all the chickens and eggs raised therein are 
worth. Yet men go on shooting and trapping 
their would-be allies, and thus aiding and abetting 
their enemies, in spite of all the facts and advice 
that can be laid before them. 
Unable, like the swift and supple weasel, to run 
mice down or follow them into narrow retreats, — 
though doubtless he pounces upon many, — the 
skunk uses his strong fore claws to dig them out 
of their little burrows and grassy lodging-places ; 
and it is the search for this prey, mainly, that leads 
him to take up his quarters in the barns and out- 
houses of a farm, where he often inhabits the hay- 
mow, scrambling even to the top of it. Unless dis- 
turbed to the point of odorous resistance by the 
dogs—oh, that American farmers would kill off 
the host of curs that do so much to keep them 
poor!—his presence would scarcely be known, 
or if discovered would not be resented; and hun- 
dreds, perhaps thousands, of mice would be killed 
or driven away in the course of a season. The 
same service is true to a less degree in the West, 
by reason of its capture of the destructive striped 
gophers and small prairie spermophiles there, 
while even rabbits are now and then followed and 
attacked, sometimes after following their trail a 
long distance. These timid animals have a habit 
of running into any sort of a hole, and frequently 
enter one at the other end of which dwells a skunk, 
