36 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
children. She was shooing and brushing the 
little skunks with her tail, and they were try- 
ing to grab it. He was on his back in the grass, 
feet in the air, with two or three youngsters 
tossing and tumbling about on his kicking feet. 
Skunks have a home territory—a locality in 
which they may spend their lives. The ter- 
ritory over which skunks hunt or ramble for 
amusement is about a thousand feet in diameter. 
Rarely were tracks five hundred feet from the 
dens of the several families near me. But twice 
a skunk had gone nearly a mile away; both of 
these were outings, evidently pleasure trips and 
not hunts. . 
Once when a Mr. and Mrs. Skunk wandered 
up the mountainside seeking adventure and 
amusement I trailed them—read their record in 
thesnow. They climbed more than two thousand 
feet among the crags and explored more than a 
mile into the wilderness. They found and ate 
a part of the contents of a mouse nest. They 
killed other mice and left these uneaten. This 
outing was a frolic and not a foraging expedition. 
Homeward, Mr. and Mrs. Skunk chose a 
different route from the one taken in going up 
the mountain. They travelled leisurely, going 
the longest way, pausing at one place to play 
and at another to sit and possibly to doze in 
the sunshine. 
