question I asked myself the first night I spent in 

 Maine. I had occasion to go down the road 

 that night, and as my hostess handed me the 

 lantern she said warningly, "Look out for the 

 wood- pussies on the way." From what I was 

 able to put together that night I was sure that 

 "wood-pussy " was a very pretty down-east name 

 for what, in N"ew Jersey, I had always called a 

 skunk. 



I have had about a dozen unsought meetings 

 with this greatly dreaded, seldom-named,, but 

 much-talked-of creature. Most of them are 

 moonlight scenes — pictures of dimly lighted, 

 shadow-flecked paths, with a something larger 

 than a cat in them, standing stock-still or moving 

 leisurely toward me, silvered now with pale light, 

 now uncertain and monstrous where the shadows 

 lie deepest. "With these memories always come 

 certain strange sensations of scalp-risings, chill 

 feelings of danger, of wild adventure, and of hair- 

 breadth escape. 



I have never met a skunk at night that did 



not demand (and receive) the whole path, even 



when that path was the State highway. Dispute 



the authority of a skunk? No more than I 



[282] 



