1877.] Zoölogy. 687 
ing even an approximate calculation. — CHARLES ALDRICH, Webster 
City, Iowa. 
Foop or THE SKUNK. — In his recently published most admirable 
monograph on the North American Mustelidæ, Dr. Elliott Coues, 
writing of the “common skunk” (Mephitis mephiticus), says, “ They “ 
feed largely upon insects, birds, eggs, such small reptiles as frogs, small 
quadrupeds, such as the various kinds of mice,” and adds; that “ they 
are also said to capture rabbits in the burrows in which the timorous 
beasts sometimes take refuge, though they are manifestly incapable of 
securing these swift-footed animals in the chase.” He likewise refers to 
the well-known fact of their depredations on poultry-yards. Some years 
ago I shot one of these animals near the celebrated “ Walled Lake,” in 
Wright County, Iowa, at the entrance of a burrow where it would seem 
that they had lived and multiplied and half-hibernated during many 
generations, for their excrements formed quite a mound argund the en- 
trance of their habitation. This refuse was composed almost wholly 
of the hinder portions of the craw-fish, which swarmed in the sloughs 
and ponds of the surrounding prairie. The animal matter had of course 
disappeared in the process of digestion, and the accumulations had 
bleached out so as to look like a heap of lime, — as it really was, — in 
every part of which were fragments of the limbs and external parts of these 
craw-fish of the prairie. The heap was so large that it at once sug- 
gested the idea that it must have been deposited by larger animals ; but 
some portions were quite recent, while the hole was too small to ad- 
mit any of our larger prairie mammals, such as the wolf, fox, or badger 
Hence I concluded that the craw-fish formed a staple portion of the 
food of this “enfant du diable,” as the old French naturalist termed it 
before science had given it so many names. — CHARLES ALDRICH. 
Tenacity or Lire sHown BY Some Marine Movuvsks. — In 
1875 I collected on several of the Florida keys Littorina muricata L. 
in quantities. This wasin February. I brought home quite a number 
alive and put them in my barn, intending to let the animals die and the 
Shells lose their odoriferous qualities before transferring them to my 
collection. What was my surprise to find the animals still alive in 
April, two months after they were collected. They had not been ex- 
_ posed to moisture during the time. ‘The last of them died in May. 
Again, only last winter, I collected at St. Augustine, Florida, Littorina 
_ trrorata Say, putting them in tin cans and boxes which in due course of 
time arrived home. On the first of May last I emptied the shells in 
: : a sunny place, and the animals within quickly crawled out. This was 
_ four months after I secured them. I have in my collection many Helices 
‘hat have remained alive shut up in boxes for over three years, — a thing 
that did not surprise me, as numerous similar instances are on record ; 
but I never before knew marine or semi-marine species to show so 
Much tenacity of life when removed from their natural situations. — W. 
 W. CALKINS. 
