246 The American Naturalist. [March, 
case in the nine years he has been in this district. A physi- 
cian in Southern Kansas, not remote from Fort Hays, wrote 
me that he had never heard of the skunk-rabies belief, that 
skunks were not uncommon as pets in his neighborhood (de- 
prived of their scent powers, I believe). From Southern Col- 
orado to North Dakota, I can find no belief prevailing in this 
myth. Then it all amounts to this: Dr. Janeway made care- 
ful observations twenty years ago, during an epidemic, he 
says this epidemic lasted only a year. A surgeon in the U. 
S. Army tells us that the ill effects that do sometimes follow 
skunk bites may readily be accounted for as septic poisoning, 
just as might result from the bite of a fly or the scratch of a 
tiger’s claws. Therefore, my answers to the points I quote 
from a well known naturalist are: 
lst. The bite of a non-rabid skunk can communicate no 
rabies, and it is beyond question that rabid skunks are exceed- 
ingly rare, if found at all. Inno part of this country were 
rabid skunks ever reported save during a short period of epi- 
demic rabies in Texas and Kansas. 
2nd. Skunk rabies perhaps killed more people in Texas, 
etc., during a certain period than canine rabies, but because 
sleeping in the open air (“camping ”) was common there and 
the skunks readily encountered men. I think that statistics 
would show that dog and wolf rabies has caused twenty times 
the deaths that skunk rabies has. 
8rd. To be bitten by a skunk is to risk contracting septic 
poisoning, I believe a terrible death, and the bite of a fly 
is said to have produced the same disease, and I think a 
butcher cutting himself with his butchering knife is in the 
same danger, but none of them risk rabies. 
4th. Well, yes, “beware of all skunks” on “smelling” 
grounds, but it might as well be said “ beware of all dogs, for 
one can never tell when a rabid dog may come along.” 
Minimizing dangers that are real is most dangerous and 
reprehensible, but making spooks of mist is but little less so. 
Some boy reads or hears that skunk-bite “ will make a man 
go mad,” some foy $ ag does get a skunk bite, and we can easily 
pes ry £ 
imagine e ,and all from the veriest bosh. 
