298 
YERTEBRATA, 
hero. When settled in Litchfield, in the earlier days of his long and useful career, he was one 
evening returning home, carrying with him a quarto volume of Ree's Encyclopedia, then in course. 
of publication in Philadelphia, and regarded as the Herculean enterprise of the American press 
for the dawning nineteenth century. As he went along, he saw before him a skunk, which, 
instead of hurrying its pace, or getting out of the way, seemed rather defiantly to flourish his 
tail and linger in the path. Upon this, the Reverend Doctor hurled the Cyclopedia at him, in 
revenge of which the skunk opened his battery, and took the imprudent and astonished divine 
between wind and water. Doctor Beecher reached home in a dreadful plight, and it may well 
be guessed that he did not forget the incident. Some years after, an abusive pamphlet was pub- 
lished against him by some sectarian, and the doctor was advised to reply to it. "No, no," said 
he, with equal wit and good sense ; " no ; I once discharged a quarto at a skunk and got the 
worst of it. I am not likely to try it again." 
It is said that inhaling skunk's odor has been prescribed witli good effect in asthmatic aflFec- 
tions : in one instance, however, a man who had taken it for this malady, and was benefited, was 
so impregnated with the smell as to be offensive to himself and his friends. On its being recom- 
CALIFORNIA SKUNK. 
mended to him a second time, he declined taking it, saying the remedy was worse than the dis- 
ease. In another case, a clergyman affected with asthma had a bottle of skunk's liquid, which 
he uncorked and put to his nose, when he was attacked with a paroxysm. One day, while preach- 
ing, he felt an attack, and so opened his bottle and took a w^hiff. Instantly the whole sanctuary 
was filled with the efiluvia, and the congregation spontaneously took to flight : a melancholy evi- 
dence, no doubt, alike of the levity of sinners and the strength of the odor, inasmuch as even the 
"wrath to come" was forgotten in a present momentary disgust. It appears that good old Father 
Charlevoix, in christening this animal the " Child of the Devil," had theological as well as sen- 
timental grounds for the piquant nomenclature. 
The TexA57 Skunk, the M. niesoleuca of Litchtenstein, and M. nasuta of Bennett, resembles the 
common skunk in form, size, and habits. The whole of the back, from the forehead to the rump, 
and including the tail, is covered with white hair, extending half down the sides ; the under parts 
are a blackish brown. The line of division between the light and dark colors is so sharply defined 
as to give the animal the appearance of having two distinct sorts of skin. It is found on the 
