46 



awakened by a rustling and crunching in the corner. He 

 cautioush' reached his pocket electric light and turned it 

 in that direction. Lo and behold^ — a real, live, wild skunk 

 had the cover off a basket and was vigorously and greedily 

 sampling the contents. The turning on of the light did 

 not alarm his skunk-ship at all and the Doctor, a Xature- 

 student himself, being President of the Worcester Natural 

 History Society, instead of throwing something at the in- 

 truder as others might have done to their sorrow, aroused 

 his wife and they watched the animal until it left of its 

 own accord. 



Evidently this was too good a "strike" to be neglected 

 for the skunk reappeared at the same hour the following 

 night and also the next one. It was found that cheese 

 was his favorite of everything that was offered and it was 

 also discovered that he would come just the same at the 

 same time even if the Doctor and visitors were waiting to 

 watch him in the dimly lighted tent. He would come 

 marching boldly in as though he owned the place and we 

 were his guests. Many evening parties were formed for 

 the purpose of witnessing the novel sight. 



As he did not care when the rays from an electric lamp 

 were thrown upon him, it was suggested that probably he 

 would stand for a flash-light photograph. So the experi- 

 ment was tried. It was with many misgivings that the first 

 flash was touched off. Doubtless most of tlie ten persons 

 present were wondering what they would wear the follow- 

 ing day should the worst happen. The experiment worked 

 like a charm; not a movement on the part of the animal 

 showed that he thought the flash anything out of the ordin- 

 ary. His nerves proved more steady than those of most of 

 the humans present. He was portrayed in about ten dif- 

 ferent poses, taking food from the hands of several of 

 those present, one of the best of which is the one that 

 shows him reaching up for a bit of cheese Mrs. E. is hold- 

 ing. 



This animal made almost nightly visits for more than 

 a month and then disappeared, but this goes to show that 



