1 ' ■ i _ _^ . ||»;, - ». »» _»tr i »^w l»5Mif tJ< U I . «^ 
Cross-Fires from a Skunk's Battery. 
The trapper learns manj^ secrets in the economy of 
our . furred and feathered friends to which the average 
sportsman or lover nature is a lifelong stranger, I was 
never more forcibly impressed with this fact than during 
a recent hunting trip in the Alleghanies of Clinton coun- 
ty, Pa. During the six weeks of camp life spent with 
my wife among these mountains last fall, I was -again 
favored with the occasional company and services of my 
friend, Seth Nelson, the veteran bear trapper of Round 
Island. To his forty years' experience with gun, i-od, 
trap and axe in the wilds of the Sinnemahoning, and his 
ready courtesy in loaning all he had and imparting all 
he knew I owe much that is related in this article. 
Incidental to our bear baiting and deer stalking, I ex- 
I perimented on snaring smaller game from the size of a 
shrew upward, fox trapping consuming the greater part 
of my ingenuity and patience. But chestnuts, wild grapes, 
' pheasants and mice were too easily obtained in those 
glorious October days to insure success in amateur fox 
trapping. One young fox, however, fell a victim on 
the last day of our outing, as if to both confirm and deny 
Nelson's statement that "you might trap for foxes five 
years and then have to own up that them chaps is one too 
many for you." As usual, a good many four-legged 
beasts came along and "put their foot" into our schemes 
for wily reynard. Porcupines, rabbits, mice, chipmunks 
and skunks often stumbled into the snares set for nobler 
game. To the last named animal I was undesignedly 
led to devote no small attention. My previous experience 
with this truly beautiful, elegant and useful quadruped in 
life had been secured at gunshot range, or at that in- 
definable distance which reveals itself solely through the 
medium of the nose, in one's woodland rambles. In 
death I had known it as one of the most pesk}^ greasy, 
odorous beasts that ever defied the arts of taxidermy. 
But now I was to see, handle, absorb, and devour this 
much despised and misunderstood Enfant du Diable, or 
"Child of the Evil One" (as the early Canadian settlers 
named him), in a fashion more instructive than pleas- 
ing. Of course, if skunks did not have, the ability to 
raise a terrible stench on short notice, they would be 
less talked about and better understood. Their very 
existence depends on this faculty to such a degree that 
the more typically carnivorous weapons of tooth and 
nail have degenerated in the family MephitidcB to mere 
FOHESt AND StHfiAM, 
while been shipped from our ports before an American 
anatomist named Wyman* tackled a skunk's carcass in 
the same spirit that Luther faced the Diet, and by wary 
strokes of the scalpel extracted the secret that the Amer- 
ican Indians had tucked away in their sleeves for ages. 
It was no great secret after all. Wyman first published 
the simple facts that in the skunk those same glands 
found more or less offensively developed in the mink, 
weasel, otter and other members of the great fur-bearing 
family Mustelida, arc increased to extraordinary propor- 
tions, so that it has the power not merely to secrete a 
few drops of foul smelling liquid when assaulted, but 
to eject large quantities of it to a distance of from 4 to loft. 
against its enemies. Wyman's experiments, as well as 
those of subsequent investigators, were made with the 
dead animal. The observations of Dr. Elliott Couesf 
and Dr. C. Hart Merriam$ throw much light on the 
habits of the living creature, but as I find no detailed 
records of experiments on the live skunk in action, I 
venture to present some personal experiences with four 
of these animals trapped this fall in Clinton county, 
Pennsylvania. Incidentally these touch upon several de- 
batable points, brought up by the able authors above 
cited. As is usual in experiences of this sort, even if the 
personal equation is removed the individuality of the ani- 
mal in question makes it impossible for us to set a hard 
and fast rule or venture to predict the results of fooling 
with such explosive material. 
The inconsistencies of a skunk are inexplicable enough. 
For instance, not one in twenty discharge any odor when 
the trap nips their toes, nor during their struggles to 
free themselves, though bones may be broken and feet 
gnawed off during the struggle. Let a human being ap- 
proach them in this plight, they immediately raise the 
warning tail, and if incautiously dealt with give de- 
cided notice of "hands off " 
In his "Biography of North American Quadrupeds" 
Audubon relates how he stood by the burrow of a colony 
of skunks and successively killed several of them with a 
shotgun as they emerged without causing them to dis- 
charge the fetor. T have been able to kill them in- 
stantly in the same way with a like result, but that this 
is not the invariable rule may be seen by the following: 
My ClintQ% cQunty skunk No. i was caught in a steel 
* Proceedings of Boston Soc. of N. History, 1844. 
t In Monograph of the Mustelidfe, or Fur-bearing Animals. 
i In Mammals of the Adirondacks. 
ie 
rat tfap set in a runway for rabbits. It had torn up a 
small circle of earth and bushes, and was half-dead with 
cold and exhaustion, but no odor was perceptible. Thitik- 
ing to kill it so instantly as to prevent a discharge, I dis- 
patched it with a load of shot at close range, Two 
grains of No. 6 shot broke the skull, one passing through 
the brain. To all appearances death was instantaneous, 
but there was a heavy discharge of the fluid. The action 
Jtt such cases must be purely spasmodic, but why not al- 
ways so is a problem, unless the exceptions are due to 
paralysis of the spinal cord, as suggested by Dr. Mer- 
riam. This leads us to another problem, the automatic 
or sympathetic ( ?) relation of the position of the tail to 
the action of the scent glands. The tail of skunk No. i. 
was lying on the ground in line with the back when the 
shot struck, but in the death struggle it was erected at 
right angles to the back. This was in full accord with 
Mr. Nelson's and other trappers' experience that it is im- 
possible for a skimk to discharge the fetor against its 
tail. In spite of Mr. Mcrriam's contention that a skunk 
discharged into his eyes and mouth while he was holding 
it up by the tail, and a dog was worrying its head, we 
may safely assert that Nelson's experience is in line with 
a physiological fact, and that Dr. Merriam and his dog 
did not succeed in keepmg tjie spinal column of his ani- 
mal in a straight line during the fracas.. 
Let any one who is skeptical of this rule and has not 
been favored to closely observe the glands of a skunk 
in action manipulate the battery of a dead animal. As 
the tail is drawn at right angles to the back the move- 
ment likewise acts automatically in protruding and con- 
stricting the scent glands one on either side, and in ex- 
posing the teats of these glands, so that they may be di- 
rected backward at the will of the animal in the normal 
position for a discharge. The raising of the tail in itself 
cannot cause a discharge. It is analogous to the cocking 
of a gtni; the pulling nf the trigger depends on the vo- 
lition of the animal. An .artificial discharge may be per- 
formed on the dead animal by raising the tail and apply- 
ing external pressure upon the glands. Reversing the 
movement, the glands retreat, the pressure upon "them 
relaxes, and when the tail" is at an angle of about 40 
degrees they are entirely concealed, rendering an external 
discharge impossible. To emphasize his theory, and at 
the same time show his faith therein. Nelson declared he 
had more than once picked up aii over-confiding skunk 
by the tail while it was innocently prowling about the 
woods and killed it without evil consequences. Happily 
1 have had no chance to test ray faith in this trick, but 
my firm l^clief in Nelson's statements led mc into other 
experiments, both entertaining and instructive, demon- 
strating the individuality of certain skunks and the 
h<f>nest fallil)ility of the mo.st truthful trapper that ever 
lived. These may best bo told in the words of my 
journal : "Oct. 17. — Seth says it is easy to get a skunk 
out of a trap without making a smell of it. 'Just play 
with him awhile, till he gets used to your being around, 
and then pick him up by the tail and give him a whack 
with a stick over the small of the back. Then strangle 
him. No trouble at all. Why, I've gone up to one on 
the road and picked him up by the tail and Idtled him.' " 
A week later t note : "1 liad agreed with Seth to meet 
hini early at the bear traps, and then hunt for deer. First 
I Adsited my nearby traps, and found a very spirited skimk 
in the one where the rabbit had been eaten the night be- 
fore. I fooled with the peslcj' thing a while, and then 
decided to test Scth's magic on this one, so left it fast.' 
* * * Came back to dinner by way of skunk trap, and 
Seth vainly tried to coax the spiteful beast to let him take 
hold of its tail. It would hold the tail up in a most con- 
venient position for handling, but that was not reassur- 
ing, as its battery was always trained on the enemy. Seth 
declared he never saw one so frisky. At last he made a 
stroke with a .stick across the animal's rump to deprive 
it of the power to shoot, but struck too far forward and 
the crisis came quickly. We were on the windward side, 
and the spray only reached about 5ft. from the animal 
against the light breeze. Its yellowish green color could 
be distinctly noted. The 'form of the jet was like that 
from the nozzle of a lawu sprinkler, set to make the 
water spray very fine over a circle sft. in diameter. At 
fii-st it came directly backward, but the last part of the 
discharge Avas directed from one of the nipples sidewise, 
being aimed at Nelson, who had stepped aside to avoid 
the first onslaught. Neither of its were hit, but the trap 
and the skunk both got well scented. The next stroke 
of the stick broke the animal's skull. It had been caught 
by the hindfoot, the part below the jaws of the trap hav- 
ing been entirely devoured by the imprisoned beast, at 
least I could not find any trace of the missing frag- 
ments." 
Evidetitly Nelson was quite as fallible as other great 
men. Nevertheless 1 could sec both science and com- 
mon sense in the idea that even "a bold, bad nian" could 
persuade a trapped skunk to let him whack its spine in 
such a way that it could never raise its tail again, and 
so silence it.s battery forever. It was desirable, too, for 
scientific atid lesthetic reasons, that I should secure my 
"Alaska sable" with least breakage of bones and smallest 
quota of perfumery. How this idea was persisted in and 
practiced upon is narrated in the following joTu-nal en- 
try, penned by my wife, because of a little troitble I had 
just then with my left eye: "S. concluded to visit the 
traps near camp, which Seth had him set for rabbits in a 
runway between two huge rocks. In one he found skunk 
No. 3. and having been so heartily assured by Seth that 
a whack across the base of the tail would paralyze the 
stink nerve, he tried it, first coaxing around the animal 
until it seemed friendly. Then came the blow fair upon 
the spot — result, just a little smell. Then the animal 
seemed quiet enough, but to make very sure, he whacked 
again. This time no more smell, so he loosened the trap 
chain and carried the whole outfit along gingerly about 
half-way to the shanty. Coming to a flat rock, he de- 
termined to end its sufferings, so placing the outfit 011 the 
rock he began to hold the beast down with a forked limb 
until he could set foot on the right place to suffocate it, 
when, lo, the nerve worked ! Not blindly nor at random, 
but most accurately did it work. With a sudden right- 
angled twist of its body the poor beast shot the lovely 
3'ellow fluid into my husband's eye and well over his left 
side. He says he jtunped around liveh^ and is glad there 
were no spectators, and that he had something of a 
grined, until lie examined the fifle and found it was 
sighted for 200yds. Then he was not surprised at his ill 
luck. After he had taken some dinner, having eaten 
nothing but a single biscuit since our early breakfast, we 
\vent fishing again, but had no greater success than be- 
fore. We came back discouraged and disgusted, this being 
our last chance at this lake, but we had hardly got the 
rods taken down and packed away before we saw the 
fish rising by dozens — and evidently big ones — right in the 
part of the lake we had just left. It was about the time 
at which we came in sight of the lake and seen the same 
thing the day before, and now, as then, it soon grew too 
dark to fish. It was aggravating. 
Meanwhile Poleet and Eugene had brought up the 
provisions left behind the day before. It was no hard 
job. and the men were all in good humor. 
After supper Pierre and I consulted. I had a4)6sitive 
engagement on the following Saturday morning. Wc 
figured up time and distances and found it would be im- 
possible to meet it if we followed out our original plan. 
But we could go over a part of the route and then by 
cutting across by a perfectly practicable way, through a 
country equally ucav to me, and likely to be equally in- 
teresting, it could be done. .So it was resolved. 
qubbec. g. de montauban, 
[to be continued.] 
Craising: on the Florida Gulf Coast 
Tarpon Springs, Fla. — I believe I promised you the 
earliest news from old John Gomez. The yacht Maud, 
Com. Knapp, has recently returned from a cruise to 
Miami. She brings word that old John is not only on 
the face of this earth, but is very much alive, and not- 
withstanding his T17 years can still paddle his own canoe. 
• He is still able to manage his own boat, fishing and 
.turtling, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. 
It is easy to see he has failed somewhat, but his courage 
is such that he will not admit any weakness. I shall ti-y 
and get down to see the old man some time this winter. 
The Maud was gone about eight weeks. She reports a 
very enjoj'able cruise. She went up the inside passa.ge 
from Cape Sable to Miami via Cards Sound. Although 
the prevailing northerly winds caused low tides, they made ■ 
out to get through. Perhaps ih&y did a little poling and 
wading; most folks who cruise in Florida do. Still they 
had a good time. Fishing was good; but they report 'a 
scarcity of bird life, as the plume hunter has been every- 
where. 
The town of Tarpon Springs is wearing mouring. The 
Tarpon Springs Hotel was burned. It gives Tarpon a 
black eye, as without tourists things will be dull. 
Most of the winter residents are here, and doing their 
best to catch all the fish in the river. Trout and red 
fish are biting freely, and every d:iy is a new story of 
some big catch. 
Deer are reported plenty, but hard to get. Turkeys — 
lots of 'em. 
I was much interested in Mr. Burnham's sketch of his 
visit to Rowland Robinson. I shall not accept Mr. Robin- 
son's statement that Sam Lovel is a creation. No. sir ! 
Sam Lovel just "growed," and I know him. We all know 
him. When the last Sam Lovel goes over the riwr, I 
want to go too. 
I have often thought of asking the readers of Forest 
AND Stream to name their favorite character in the Dan- 
vis books. I have tried to decide myself, but every time I 
read about them I fancy each in turn. I think though 
that Sam Lovel and John Dart get the most of the honors. 
Supposing you put the question in Forest and Stream ? 
Tarpon. 
organs of stibsistence, long, straight claws for digging 
and small, Weak teeth for cliewing the insects, mollusks,i 
reptiles, birds and mice on which they subsist. In 
other words a skunk is such a harrrtless, confiding, well- 
fed animal, so conspicuous and tempting withal to the 
uninitiated beast of prey and so poorly armed for an en- 
couiUer, that we can easily believe the whole tribe would 
speedily become extinct if they were suddenly deprived of 
their scent bags. Oii the other hand, did not man and 
some of the lower animals, as owls, hawks, dogs, wolves, 
wildcats, and starving foxes, overcome their prejudices 
and prey occasionally upmi the skttnk they would become 
a nuisance. 
The once popular idea that a. skunk urinates on his 
long, bu.shy tail and then distributes the ill-smelling 
fluid by a vigorous swish of this member into the face of 
his antagonist, while largely dispelled, dies hard. The 
fact that this animal in its unprovoked state is one of the 
most cleanly and inoffensive of quadrupeds, unsuspicious, 
courting inspection, intent on its own business, yet some- 
times approaching a human being out of pure, confiding 
curiosity, is something not so well known. In this re- 
gard the unreasoning popular horrors of skunks and of 
rattlesnakes are strangely analogous. In both the up- 
lifted tail is a timely wnniing against too close ap- 
proaches; both prefer flight to resistance; neither acts to- 
ward man on the offensive. 
, It was a long while after the Pilgrim Fathers first came 
in offensive contact witli the Massachusetts .skunk that 
one of their descendants ventured to set himself up 
against the popular ideas of the animal's economjo Thou- 
sands, naj' millions, of the skins of this animal had mean- 
tfiE SKUNK at home. 
From Audubon's Plate. 
