51 
peared in zoological literature over one hundred years before the Lin- 
‘naean system. Gabriel Sagard-Théodat quaintly describes it in his his- 
tory of Canada, 1636, as follows : 
‘Les enfans du diable, que les Hurons appellent Scangaresse, & le commun des Mon- 
tagnais Babougi Manitou, ou Cuinesque, est un beste fort puante, de la grandeur d’un 
chat on Wun ieune renard, mais elle a la teste un peu moins aigué, & la peau couuerte 
d’un gros poil rude & enfumé, et sa grosse queué retroussée de mesme, elle se cache en 
Hyuer sous la neige, & ne sort point qu’au commencement de la Lunedu mois de Mars, 
laquelle les Montagnais nomment Ouiniscon pismi, qui signifie la Lune de la Ouinesque. 
Cet anima), outre qu’il est de fort mauuaise odeur, est tres-malicieux & d’un laid regard, 
ils ietteut aussi (A ce qu’on dit) parry leurs excremens de petits serpens, longs & deliez, 
les quels ne viuent neant moizs gueres long temps. Ven pensois apporter une peau 
passée, mais un Francois passager me i’ayant demandée ie la luy donnay.” 
This passage contains the earliest account of the Skunk known to 
Richardson or Dr. Coues. The present species was not clearly indicated 
by Linnaeus and his early supporters. The Viverra putorws L. was based 
on Kalm’s “ Fiskatta,” no doubt the present animal, but the primary 
reference is to Catesby’s Polecat, and the description rather suits the 
Spilogale. Later (1786), Linnaeus rested his species on Catesby and Kalm 
(as in 1758), and involved the history by citing Hernandez, Ray, Seba, 
and Brisson, thus including animals generically as well as specifically 
distinct. Not until 1792 was the species described with sufficient perti- 
-nence and exclusiveness (Viverra mephitica, Shaw) to warrant a tena ble 
‘Specific name. 
On account of its literal resemblance to the genus Mephitis (Cuvier), 
the specific title mephitica was suppressed until revived by Baird, in 1857, 
in accordance with the law of priority. | 
M. chinga (Tiedemann, 1808), is undoubtedly the same as the present 
species, and was adopted by Tiedemann, Audubon and Bachman, and 
others, until 1857. Since this date the alliterative name, Meplate me- 
phitica has become current. 
Habits.—The disposition, habits, and possibly the structure (as far as 
this may be conditional on its mode of life) of the Skunk, are modified 
so completely, as compared with other Mustelidz, by its unique and effli- 
cient mede of defense and offense, continual reliance upen which has 
changed its entire economy, that no correct cutline can be portrayed, 
unless the nature and use of its peculiar armament are understood. ‘The 
physiological réle of this special secretion is obvious. Its relation to the 
perpetuation of the species, though overshadowed by its exageration into 
a powerfully effective means of preservation of the invidual, is evidently 
the same as in other species of Mustelzdx, each one of which has its own 
emanation to bring the sexes together, not only by amply indicating 
their whereabouts, but by serying as a positive attraction. In the case 
