ZOOLOGY. 
117 
best treatment, and that after a short space of time the unpleasant symptoms all disappear. 
Have heard that bathing the eyes in weak vinegar and water is also very efficacious. The 
skunk is said to cast its anal secretion upon its bushy tail, and that, with a dexterous jerk, it 
then throws it upon its pursuer. The settlers say that if a skunk is lifted up by the tail, he 
cannot, while thus suspended, throw the secretion upon his captor. This is an experiment 
which I confess I have not had the hardihood to make. 
A large fat skunk, carefully prepared, I saw cooking in a camp on the Blue mountains of 
Oregon. The meat seemed so savory that I asked the gastronomic experimenter who owned 
it to give me a piece to taste. He did so, and I, finding the creature so much to my fancy, 
made a hearty dinner off of it. When carefully prepared, the anal glands and “scent bag” 
having been completely removed, they are certainly very good eating; the slightly strong flavor 
resembling much that artificially given by a skilful clief de cuisine with onions or garlic. 
The settlers on the lower part of Puget Sound say that there are there two species of skunk; 
one of these, the larger kind, of which specimen marked No. 125, in my collection, is an 
example, is the M. occidentals. The other is a small species not more than one-third the size 
of the first. [This is probably the M. bicolor, Gray.] It is a very pretty animal, not striped 
like the other, but of a black color, mottled or spotted on the back with white, as if with digit 
marks of white paint. This statement is made on the authority of several respectable citizens 
of the vicinity, who all unite as to the truth of the facts stated. Perhaps they may be in error 
by taking the young of the common kind for a second species. They say that the small skunk 
is not often found in winter, and that it is supposed that they hibernate. Also, that the small 
kind climb well, like rats, and do not often cast their odor. Mr. Madison, a settler at the Straits 
of Fuca, says that the habits of the two kinds are so different that he is sure that they are not 
identical. 
The frequent residence of skunk under the ground floors of the settlers’ houses has already 
been alluded to. Living and breeding in these situations, they keep the atmosphere ahvays 
slightly stimulating to the nostrils. Mirabile dictu! it seems that some people becoming accus¬ 
tomed to the scent rather acquire a fondness for it, upon the same principle, I suppose, that 
certain chemists become fond of the odor of sulphuretted hydrogen ! The Nisqually Indians 
call the skunk sTcum-meoh, and have some very amusing traditions concerning it.—S. 
TAXIDEA AMERICANA, Baird. 
American Badger. 
[See chap. 2, p. 94.] 
The badger is very common on the dry, barren plains on the Yakima river, Washington Terri¬ 
tory, also on the timberless mountains between the Yakima and the Columbia. I have never 
seen any badgers west of the Cascade mountains. It is called by the Yakimas Weehthla .—G. 
During my residence in Washington Territory I obtained but one skin of the badger, although 
the animal is, as Mr. Gibbs remarks, very plentiful in the open country east of the Cascade 
mountains. In certain sections, as, for instance, the Simcoe valley, their burrows are so numerous 
that it is exceedingly dangerous to ride fast lest your horse should, by stepping in one, fall, at 
great risk to both himself and the rider. This is also the case on the plains of the buffalo 
regions in western Minnesota (now Dacotah) and Nebraska. In the first mentioned Territory 
their burrows are inhabited in midsummer by vast numbers of a gregarious species of garter 
snake. I have seen at times, at the bottom of a vacated “hole,” a dozen or more in a knot— 
the writhing excessively serpentine mass disgusting all but the naturalist. 
