122 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



stupid, good-tempered brute, so greedy that when 

 you offered him a piece of meat he would swallow 

 half your arm, and so obedient that at a word he 

 would dash himself against the horns of a bull, and 

 face death and danger in any shape. But, my 

 brother told me, he would not face a skunk — he 

 would die first. One day I took him out and found a 

 skunk, and for upwards of half an hour I sat on my 

 horse vainly cheering on my cowardly follower, and 

 urging him to battle. The very sight of the enemy 

 gave him a fit of the shivers ; and when the irascible 

 little enemy began to advance against us, going 

 through the performance by means of which he 

 generally puts his foes to flight without resorting to 

 malodorous measures — stamping his little feet in 

 rage, jumping up, spluttering and hissing and 

 flourishing his brush like a warlike banner above his 

 head — then hardly could I restrain my dog from 

 turning tail and flying home in abject terror. My 

 cruel persistence was rewarded at last. Continued 

 shouts, cheers, and hand-clappings began to stir the 

 brute to a kind of frenzy. Torn by conflicting 

 emotions, he began to revolve about the skunk at a 

 lumbering gallop, barking, howling, and bristling 

 up his hair ; and at last, shutting his eyes, and with 

 a yell of desperation, he charged. I fully expected 

 to see the enemy torn to pieces in a few seconds, 

 but when the dog was still four or five feet from 

 him the fatal discharge came, and he dropped down 

 as if shot dead. For some time he lay on the earth 

 perfectly motionless, watched and gently bedewed 

 by the victorious skunk ; then he got up and crept 

 whining away. Gradually he quickened his pace, 



