Concord, Mass.
1905.
October 17
  Clear and cool with light N. wind.
  At 7.30 P.M. I started to walk from the cabin to the
farm taking a lighted lantern. It was a clear, calm starlit
night. As I neared birch gate two Muskrats in the river
made a succession of abrupt startled plunges close to the bank.
  Nothing else of interest happened until I reached the woods
that lie between the farm and the Ritchie place. As I was
crossing the causeway in these woods a Saw Whet Owl began
calling among the large maples on my right & another answered from
the distance to the westward. The first was about 50 yds off.
He regularly uttered eight or ten notes in rather slow succession.
His voice was startling loud in the still night air. His calls
reminded me strongly of the notes of the Black-billed Cuckoo's
song. Indeed they were very like them but louder & given
more slowly. He called in all a dozen times or more. This
happened about half an hour before the moon rose.
  After listening to Saw Whets for several minutes I
started on when I noticed for the first time what looked
like a V. shaped piece of white paper in the path. I 
walked forward & stopped within two feet of it holding the
lantern well up. It still looked like a piece of paper & I
was about to stoop & pick it up when a dusky form
began to materialize about it. This slowly resolved itself
into the shape of a large Skunk who had flattened himself
on his belly in the path facing me. I now saw his nose
working as he sniffed the air & his little glistening beady eyes.
After talking to him awhile I stepped back a few paces
when he rose to his feet turned about & trotted off up the
path as nimbly as a cat & with much the same gait
carry his long tail nearly straight & on a level with his back.
Finally he turned out of the path & rustled off among the leaves. He
did not once threaten me.