The Mephitic Skunk. 
121 
at home, I went out to where the dogs, twelve in 
number, were sleeping : while I stood there a 
skunk appeared and deliberately came towards 
me, passing through the dogs where they lay, 
and one by one as he passed them they rose 
up, and, with their tails between their legs, 
skulked oh. When made to kill skunks often 
they become seasoned ; but always perform the 
loathsome task expeditiously, then rush away with 
frothing mouths to rub their faces in the wet 
clay and rid themselves of the fiery sensation. At 
one time I possessed only one dog that could be 
made to face a skunk, and as the little robbers were 
very plentiful, and continually coming about the 
house in their usual open, bold way, it was rather 
hard for the poor brute. This dog detested them 
quite as strongly as the others, only he was more 
obedient, faithful, and brave. Whenever I bade 
him attack one of them he would come close up to 
me and look up into my face with piteous pleading 
eyes, then, finding that he was nob to be let off from 
the repulsive task, he would charge upon the doomed 
animal with a blind fury wonderful to see. Seizing 
it between his teeth, he would shake it madly, 
crushing its bones, then hurl it several feet from 
him, only to rush again and again upon it to repeat 
the operation, doubtless with a Caligula-like wish in 
his frantic breast that all the skunks on the globe 
had but one backbone. 
I was once on a visit to a sheep-farming brother, 
far away on the southern frontier of Buenos Ayres, 
and amongst the dogs I found there was one most 
interesting creature. He was a great, lumbering, 
