viii 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 



