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, 



