Long-Tailed Texas Skunk 211 
indicate. Arkins, Larimer County, Salida, and Colorado Springs, 
with one from Coventry, Montrose County, are all the records at 
hand, while one or two skulls from Barr, Adams County, seem to 
belong to this species. 
Habits. — The skunks of the genus Mephitis are of similar 
habits, which have already been partly described in the 
account of the genus. While they are mainly of nocturnal 
habits, yet they are frequently seen abroad in daylight. 
Besides eating such insects as grasshoppers, they also dig up 
and eat those grubs which bury themselves in the ground. 
They do not hibernate regularly, but in the severest winter 
weather may stay in their dens for some days. Skunks often 
get excessively fat when food is abundant, so much so that 
their skins are often difficult to take care of and preserve 
properly. 
Mephitis mesomelas varians (Grk. mesos, middle, + 
melas, black, referring to black stripe between white 
ones; varians, Lat. varying). Long-Tailed Texas Skunk. 
Mephitis varians Gray, Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., i., p. 581 
(1837). 
Type locality. — Texas. (Specimens from lower Rio Grande 
Valley considered typical, Howell.) 
Measurements. — Male'. Total length, 28.5 ; tail vert., 13.25; hind 
foot, 3.0. Female: Total length, 26.35; "^a-il vert., 11.25; hind 
foot, 2.70. There seems to be much variation in Colorado speci- 
mens as to the relative length of tail. 
Description. — Color and markings much as in preceding species. 
Two specimens from Wray, Yuma County, in my collection exhibit 
extremes in amount of white showing in tail, one having the white 
stripes along the sides of the tail practically obsolete, only a few 
white hairs showing, and it is not until one lifts up the hairs that 
the white inner portion is seen. In the other probably 80 per cent, 
of the tail shows white, and it ends in a scanty tuft of white hairs 
extending three inches beyond the rest of the tail. 
The skull is smaller and narrower than that of M. hudsonica, with 
less abruptly spreading zygomata. Palate shorter than in hudsonica, 
posterior end even with or anterior to plane of posterior portion of 
last molars. 
