2o8 The Mammals of Colorado 
fall victims to these energetic foes, which can soon enlarge 
a hole sufficiently to enable them to enter and follow their 
prey. They are extremely useful animals, doing little or no 
harm to man, but rendering great service by destroying 
many harmful rodents. " It is true that the large holes the 
badger sometimes digs are dangerous to horsemen on the 
plains, but this is not a sufficient excuse for killing the animal 
at sight, as is too often done. We have no exact information as 
to their breeding habits, but the young are said to be three 
or four and are born some time in the spring. 
Genus MEPHITIS (Lat., a pestilential exhalation) 
Mephitis Cuvier, Legon Anat. Comp., i., tabl. i, Class Mamm. 
(1800). Type Viverra mephitis Schreber. 
Revision, Howell, N. A. Fauna, No. 20 (igoi). 
The skunks of this genus are moderately small stocky animals, 
heavy behind, with rather sharp noses, small ears, short legs, and 
long bushy tails; the hair is long and loose with a dense under-fur; 
the colors are the same in all the species, black and white, the latter 
color being in a narrow frontal stripe, and two dorsal stripes of 
varying width, sometimes almost or wholly wanting, and again 
uniting and forming a broad band on whole back. The females 
are smaller than the males. The skull is arched and highest in the 
frontal region ; hinder end of palate nearly on a line with the posterior 
portion of last molars; postorbital processes not prominent; denti- 
tion: i. f ; c. 1; pm. f ; m. | X 2 = 34. 
The malodorous fluid which has made the skunk notorious 
wherever it is known, and is such a powerful means of 
defence, is secreted by two anal glands described by Dr. C. 
Hart Merriam as follows: "The glands lie on either side 
of the rectum, and are imbedded in a dense gizzard-like 
mass of muscle which serves to compress them so forcibly 
that the contained fluid may be ejected to the distance of 
four or five metres (approximately 13 to 16^ feet). Each sac 
is furnished with a single duct that leads into a prominent 
nipple-like papilla that is capable of being protruded from 
the anus, and by means of which the direction of the jet 
