R-.1T8-51-31 



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Thoy alsc soon to consider the Colorado potato beetle c delicate norsel 

 and spend rvmy a busy evoniiitj in potato patches catching and eating the grubs 

 and mature beetles. 



However, insects are not the sole food of skunks, by any manner of means. 

 These beautiful little black and Thite "polecats", as we used to call then, 

 have been accused of killinf; quail and other game birds and of taking chickens 

 and eggs. And they do sometimes, but more often they get blamed for some other 

 animal's der>redations. As a matter of fact, I've knovm quails to nest and 

 hatch out a brood within a few rods of a skunk den. Tlie truth seems to be that 

 at the season when our native game birds arc nesting, skunks have plenty of 

 insect food, and by the time that food fails, the birds arc strong of wir^ and 

 seldom foj.1 a prey to a polecat. 



As for the chickens, the skuni: gdts credit for a lot of killings by 

 weasels and minlcs, which are much better climbers and far more bloodthirsty. 

 Lil'ely as not, the slojnk detected around the hen house was there after the 

 rats and mice. Polecats are really renarlcably fine mousors. Of course, the 

 individual that hunts and kills chickens should be destroyed. 



Most such suspicion, the specialists tell r.c comes from the fact that 

 skunks work largely under cover of darlaiess and the person who swcepingly 

 blnnes the skunk usually doesn't go to the trouble of investigating thoro^ughly. 

 Evidence taJcen from the stomchs of a large number of sku2il':s supports the idea 

 that skunlcs pxc on the whole higlily beneficial in their food habits. 



And of course we all Imow that skunlc skins arc highly prized for fur. 

 Nowadays we just have tliree fairly abundriit fur animals left in the United 

 States; the muslcrat, the mink, pjid the skunlr. The biologists say that there 

 seems to be little danger of extinction of the muskrat, but tliat the mink 

 is already in danger, and that the demand for skmik fur is causing more and 

 more trapping of slcunlis. 



However, as frjr as the fur question goes it is believed that skunlcs 

 can bo domesticated and successfully raised in captivity in many parts of the 

 United States. There is a bulletin. Farmers' Bulletin ITo. 587 on "The 

 Economic Value of North American Slrunks" for anyone interested in the subject. 

 It tells how to trap and raise them and how to remove those fomous scent 

 sacs which put skunks in such bc-d odor with many people. 



And Tdiile we are mentioning misunderstood wild creatures, let me say a 

 good word for the European Starlings, now found as breeding birds in many of 

 the States east of the Mississippi River. 1^ the last twenty years, they have 

 spread fast, and there seems every reason to expect that they will continue to 

 spread westward to the Rocky Mountains, and if the Mountains don't stop them, 

 right on to the Pacific Coa^t, 



A lot of farmers and bird lovers have looked with suspicion on the ever- 

 increasing flocks of these birds and have accused them of many crimes. And 

 specialists of the Biological S-i.irvey admit that Starlings do damage cherries, 

 and other small fruits, and garden truck, and even late fruit and com. And 

 probably their filth-producing roosting liabits in cities are more largely 

 responsible for the bad name they have acquired. 



