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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



of Mexico, in 1628, Dr. Hernandez tells us 

 that "the powerful arm which they use when 

 in peril is the insupportable gas they throw out 

 behind which condenses the surrounding at- 

 mosphere so that, as one grave missionary 

 says, it appears as though one could feel it." 



That the little spotted skunk is subject to 

 rabies and has communicated it to many men 

 in the West is unquestionable. It usually bites 

 men who are sleeping on the ground in its 

 haunts, as they commonly do on the western 

 stock ranges. 



I have personally known of several instances 

 in northern Arizona of men being bitten by 

 them. . The head, face, and hands, being un- 

 covered, are the points attacked. One man in 

 the mountains south of Winslow, Arizona, was 

 bitten on the top of his head in April, 1910, 

 but paid no attention to the slight wound until 

 two months later when he began to have 

 spasms. He then hurried to town and died in 

 great agony the next day. The year following 

 a man in the same district was bitten in the 

 face, and seizing the animal threw it from him 

 in such a manner that it fell on his brother 

 and bit him before he awakened. Both men 

 were given the Pasteur treatment and had no 

 further trouble. 



On New Year's night of 1906, while I was at 

 the village of Cape San Lucas, at the extreme 

 southern end of the Peninsula of Lower Cali- 

 fornia, a large-sized old male spotted skunk 

 entered the open door of a neighboring house 

 and bit through the upper lip of a little girl 

 sleeping on the floor. Her screams brought 

 her father to the rescue, and with a well-aimed 

 blow he killed the offender. The next morning 

 the skunk was brought to me and added to my 

 collection. As I left a few days later I never 

 learned the result of this bite, but while there 

 was informed that a man had died the previous 

 year from a similar bite. The occasional in- 

 stances of this kind are remembered and ap- 

 pear more numerous than they are in fact. For 

 years many men have slept in the open where 

 these animals abound, without being molested. 

 It is interesting to find that when the voyager 

 Duhaut-Cilly visited the Cape in 1826, the na- 

 tives feared these skunks because they entered 

 houses at night, biting people and infecting 

 them with hydrophobia. 



The little spotted skunks have extremely ani- 

 mated, playful natures, as I have had several 

 occasions to observe. Two instances serve to 

 illustrate this. Once at the mouth of a canyon 

 at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, 

 California, I camped several days at a deserted 

 ranch. At night I spread my blankets on the 

 bare floor of the house, from which the doors 

 were gone. Under it led several burrows of 

 some animal which I at first supposed to be a 

 ground squirrel. Each night while there I was 

 awakened by the sound of little footfalls pad- 

 ding rapidly about over the floor on which I 

 was sleeping, and in the dim light from the 

 moon could see two or three little spotted skunks 

 pursuing one another around me like playful 



kittens. At the slightest movement on my part 

 they dashed out the door and into their dens 

 under the house. As there was no food of any 

 kind in this room, it was evident that the little 

 fellows were there for a frolic on the smooth 

 board floor. 



On another occasion in the mountains of 

 San Luis Potosi, on the Mexican table-land, I 

 found a spring to which bears were coming 

 for water at night. As the bears here appeared 

 to be strictly nocturnal. I ensconced myself in 

 the evening with a dark lantern, amid some 

 small bushes, against a large pine log which 

 sloped downward to the bottom of the gulch 

 near the spring, with the plan to welcome any 

 bears which might come in. An hour or more 

 after dark the clinking rattle of small stones 

 on the far side of the gulch indicated the pres- 

 ence of some animal. The light from the 

 lantern was flashed on the spot and the rifle 

 lowered with exasperation as, running back and 

 forth, turning over stones in search of insects, 

 a spotted skunk was revealed. The movements 

 of this unwelcome visitor were extremely light 

 and graceful, and in my interest in watching 

 them, for a time I forgot the bear. Two or 

 three hours passed and the skunk tired of the 

 hillside and came down to the spring, where 

 he found the offal from a deer which I had 

 placed there for bait. This gave him more to 

 do, and after I had listened to him worry the 

 meat for awhile, I turned on the light and was 

 entertained by the sight thus revealed. The 

 skunk appeared to have a persistent desire to 

 drag away the offal many times his weight. He 

 would seize the edge of one of the lungs and 

 after a hard struggle would get it up on one 

 edge, when the burden would turn over with 

 a flap, whirling the skunk flat on his back each 

 time. Immediately scrambling to his feet, he 

 would give the meat a fierce shake of resent- 

 ment and repeat the performance. 



After a long time the moon arose and the 

 skunk could be plainly seen running back and 

 forth playfully, now biting at the meat and now 

 turning over stones apparently in sheer exuber- 

 ance of spirit. Then he suddenly mounted the 

 lower end of the log and came galloping up it 

 until he was close to my shoulder. There he 

 stopped and, coming as near as possible, ex- 

 tended his nose within a few inches of my 

 face, and for minute or more stood trying to 

 satisfy himself about this strange object. Satis- 

 fied at last, he turned and galloped back down 

 the log and resumed his antics in the gulch, 

 finally working close to the bank three or four 

 yards below me. There he found many small 

 stones and had a fine time rattling them about 

 until I decided that with this disturbing pres- 

 ence I should have little chance for other game. 

 Finding a convenient stone, and locating the 

 skunk as well as possible from the sounds, I 

 tossed it over to try and frighten him away. 

 My aim was too true, for the characteristic 

 skunk retort filled the air with suffocating 

 fumes and I immediately lost interest in further 

 bear hunting. 



