56 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
the meat is considered by the natives to be excellent food. It breeds once a year, 
and has from six to ten young at a time. A considerable number of animals of the 
genus Mephitis, natives of America, resembling each other strongly in form and 
size, but differing in the number and variety of their stripes and markings, have 
been described by authors as so many distinct species. Baron Cuvier thinks that 
the present state of our knowledge of these animals does not warrant us in con- 
sidering them otherwise than as varieties of a single species, and of these varieties 
he enumerates fifteen*. I have now seen a considerable number of specimens, 
killed to the north of the Great Lakes, none of which presented any important 
deviation in their markings from the one principally referred to in the description 
which follows ; and M. Desmarest remarks, that “ the varieties (if they are to be 
considered as such, and not as species) are, for the most part, sufficiently uniform 
in the same district of country in the disposition of their stripes.” The Hudson 
Bay variety, however, comes nearest to the description of the Chinche of Buffon ; 
the Viverra Mephitis of Gmelin, which is said to be an inhabitant of Chili. The 
Fiskatta, or Skunk, of Kalm, which inhabits Canada, has a white dorsal line in 
addition to two lateral ones. 
DESCRIPTION. 
The Skunk is low on its legs, with a broad fleshy body, wide forehead, and the general 
aspect rather of a wolverene than of a martin ;—eyes small; ears, short and round, A nar- 
row white meesial line runs from the tip of the nose to the occiput, where it dilates into a 
broad white mark. It is again narrowed, and continues so until it passes the shoulders, when 
it forks, the branches running along the sides, and becoming much broader as they recede 
from each other. They approach posteriorly, and unite on the ramp, becoming at the same 
time narrower. In some few specimens the white stripes do not unite behind, but disappear 
on the flanks. The black dorsal space included by the stripes is egg-shaped, the narrow end 
of which is towards the shoulders. ‘The sides of the head and all the under parts are black. 
The hair on the body is long. The tail is covered with very long hair, and has generally two 
broad longitudinal white stripes above on a black ground. Sometimes the black and white 
colours of the tail are irregularly mixed. Its under surface is black. The claws on the fore- 
feet are very strong and long, being fitted for digging, and very unlike those of the martins. 
* Ossemens fossiles, 
+ The earliest account of the Canada Skunk that I have met with, is by Sagard :—“ Les enfans du diable,” dit il, 
“6 que les Hurons appelle Scangaresse, et le commun de Montagnais, Babougi Manitou, ou Ouinesque, est une beste 
fort puante de la grandeur d’un chat ou d’une jeune renard, mais elle a la teste un peu moins aigué, et la peau converte 
d'un gros poil rude et enfumé, et sa grosse queué retroussée de mesme, elle se cache en hyver sous la neige, et ne sort 
point qu’au commencement de la lune du mois de Mars laquelle les Montagnais nomment Ouiniscon pismi, qui signifie 
la Lune dela Ouinesque. Cet animal, outre qu’il est de fort mauvaise odeur, est tres malicieux, et d’un laid regard.’’—~ 
F, G..SacarD THEODAT, Hist. du Canada, p. 748. 
