The Mephitic Skunk. j 19 
all over South and JN’orth America. Professor 
Baird gravely introduces it into his great work on 
the mammalia. I was once talking about animals 
in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine 
officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encamp- 
ment, he had asked the savages how they contrived 
to kill skunks without making even a life in the 
desert intolerable. A grave old Cacique informed 
him that the secret was to go boldly up to the 
animal, take it by the tail, and despatch it ; for, he 
said, when you fear it not at all, then it respects 
your courage and dies like a lamb — sweetly. The 
officer, continuing his story, said that on quitting 
the Indian camp he started a skunk, and, glad of an 
opportunity to test the truth of what he had heard, 
dismounted and proceeded to put the Indian plan 
in practice. Here the story abruptly ended, and 
when I eagerly demanded to hear the sequel, the 
amateur hunter of furs lit a cigarette and vacantly 
watched the ascending smoke. The Indians are 
grave jokers, they seldom smile ; and this old tra- 
ditional skunk- joke, which has run the length of a 
continent, finding its way into many wise books, is 
their revenge on a superior race. 
I have shot a great many eagles, and occasionally 
a carancho (Polyborus tharus), with the plumage 
smelling strongly of skunk, which shows that these 
birds, pressed by hunger, often commit the fearful 
mistake of attacking the animal. My friend Mr. 
Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a communica- 
tion to the l&is, describes an encounter he actually 
witnessed between a carancho and a skunk. Biding 
home one afternoon, he spied a skunk shuffling 
