Concord, Mass.
1910.
Sept 30
[September 30, 1910]

  Brilliantly clear with light westerly winds.

Experience with a young Skunk.

  We had an interesting experience with a Skunk at Ball's Hill
not long after dark this evening. He was a young one about two-
thirds grown and was first noticed by Harry who saw him only dimly
as he crossed the path in front of the cabin. After supplying
ourselves with a powerful lantern and two candle lamps we
followed him into a thicket of button bushes at the edge of
the river. Here he crept slowly back and forth, showing little
fear of us and never over threatening us in any way although we
repeatedly stood within a yard of him holding up the lantern directly
over him as he glided smoothly and noiselessly over the ground
moving at a snail's pace with body & tail flattened cose [close] to the earth.
At length we forced him out of the thicket into a bed of
pickerel weed. Crossing this & coming to the very edge of the
river he entered it and swam several yards just outside the
pickerel weed, his white tail trailing out behind and showing very
conspicuously on the dark water. When he landed he went back into
the bushes where we finally left him.