234 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
with the carelessness of a Musketeer of the Guard; 
and when the commotion brings the farmer and 
his gun, it is ten to one whether he make a single 
intelligent effort to get away. Asa matter of fact, 
roost-robbery is only an occasional wickedness ; 
or, more truly, perhaps, it is only a few skunks who 
adopt the habit of raiding the poultry-yard, and the 
total of his depredations does not amount to a tithe 
of the return he makes by his nocturnal activity 
among the gophers, mice, and injurious insects. 
Moreover, he has to bear the blame of most of 
the misdeeds of the more stealthy and sagacious 
fox, marten, and weasel. 
What are the skunk’s natural enemies? Well, 
like other of the smaller mammals, he must suffer 
from the attacks of the larger ones, though it is 
customary to assert — but this is largely an assump- 
tion open to dispute —that he is not so frequently 
seized as would be another animal equally tooth- 
some and incautious, by the puma, wild-cats, wolves, 
and large hawks and owls, all of which do some- 
times kill and eat him. He must now and then 
get into fatal quarrels with the fox, badger, fisher, 
mink, and other weasels with which he comes into 
competition and contact, but against which he can 
make a pretty nearly equal fight, regardless of his 
quick-firing battery. 
This suggests some interesting speculations as 
to the actual value to the animal of its peculiar 
defensive armature. One would think, — consider- 
