INTRODUCING MR. AND MRS. SKUNK 45 
never ask questions too quickly, and this time 
there was no opportunity. 
As I rounded the trees there before me were 
two fighting skunks being separated by the 
trapper. Both turned on him for separating 
them; but he was into the tent-fly and nearly 
out of range. Again they were at grips and 
were biting, clawing, and rolling about when the 
trapper rushed in, caught his shoe beneath them, 
and with a leg swing threw them hurtling 
through the air. They dropped splash into the 
brook. They separated and swam out to dif- 
ferent sides of the brook. 
The following day a skunk came out of the 
woods below camp and fed along the brook in 
the willows, then out across an opening. I 
watched him for an hour or longer. 
At first I thought him a youngster and started 
to get close to him. But while still at safe range 
I looked at him through my field glasses and 
remained at a distance. Yet I am satisfied that 
he was a youngster, for he allowed a beetle to 
pinch his nose, ants were swarming all over him 
before he ceased digging in an ant hill, and a 
mouse he caught bit his foot. 
He dug and ate beetles, ants, grubs from 
among the grass roots, found a stale mouse, 
claimed grubs from alongside a stump, and con- 
sumed a whole cluster of caterpillars. Then he 
