The Skunk. 31 
dung to such an extent that it was scarcely possible to remain 
in the sitting-room. 
This introduction to Mephitis, with which I should have been 
well content, was soon to be followed by a more intimate 
acquaintance. Riding home one moonlight night, my horse 
hesitated at a bit of soft ground, and, knowing his habit—per- 
haps he had been badly bogged at one time—I struck the spurs 
hard into him, being well aware that the place was only fetlock 
deep. At that instant a dark object started from under his 
feet, and I was overwhelmed by that once “ felt,” never-to-be- 
forgotten stench! The horse, no doubt, had perceived the brute, 
and would have avoided it, but my unfortunate irritation had 
driven him on, and we got the whole benefit of the skunk’s dis- 
charge. What the horse thought of it I do not know, though 
he did not appear disconcerted. For myself, it was misery to 
ride another half hour with that reeking stench under my 
nostrils. On arriving home, I turned out the horse, shuffled off 
my trousers and boots (which certainly had received some of it), 
left them on the grass, and appeared to my astonished friends, 
who had just sat down to a game of “cut throat euchre,” totally 
denuded of clothing as to my nether man. The laughter having 
subsided, the case was considered one worthy of some com- 
miseration. No one else of the party had ever suffered equal 
misfortune, or, I may say, incurred the indignity inflicted on me 
by that contemptible beast. I had to give one of the peons a 
dollar to burn the trousers next day—they were past saving— 
and scrub the boots for a couple of hours with soap and soda. 
However, I could not make up my mind to wear them again, and 
it is doubtful whether anyone ever rode that horse again. 
Whenever a mount was wanted, and the peon asked which he 
should saddle up, the answer always contained the caution, 
“but mind, not that dark grey.” 
The secretion must apparently be protective, otherwise the 
animal would not, as I believe is invariably the case when sur- 
prised or alarmed, wait to make use of it before attempting to 
escape. Some dogs, 1 have been told, will run into a skunk and 
