The dwarf weasels appear to be less numerous and, as a consequence, less known in most parts of America than in England and northern Europe. Our most northern species, Mustela rixosa, sometimes called the “mouse weasel,” occupies Alaska and northern Canada and has the distinction of being the smallest known species of carnivore in the world. In this connection it is interesting to note that in Alaska we have associated on the same ground the least weasel and the great brown bear, the smallest and the largest living carnivores.

Least weasels are characterized by the same swift alertness and boldness so marked in the larger species. In fact they are, if possible, even quicker in their movements. Once when camping in spring among scattered snowbanks on the coast of Bering Sea, I had an excellent opportunity to witness their almost incredible quickness. Early in the morning one suddenly appeared on the margin of a snowbank within a few feet, and after craning its neck one way and the other, as though to get a better view of me, it vanished, and then appeared so abruptly on a snowbank three or four yards away that it was almost impossible to follow it with the eye. It was beginning to take on its summer coat of brown and was extremely difficult to locate amid the scattered patches of snow and bare moss of the tundra. Certainly no other mammal can have such flash-like powers of movement.

They feed mainly on mice, lemmings, shrews, small birds, their eggs and young, and insects. Mice furnish a large proportion of their prey and weasels have often been seen following the runways of field mice. Their small size enables them to pursue mice into their underground workings as readily as a ferret enters a rabbit burrow. They also climb trees and bushes with great agility, although nearly always seeking their victims on the ground. The mice upon which they prey are often so much larger than the weasels that they cannot be dragged into the dens. The weasels continue in full activity throughout the winter and constantly burrow into the snow in search of their prey. In the snow or in the ground the holes of this animal are about the diameter of one’s finger.

In the Old World the small weasels are reported to have several litters in a season, each containing five or six young. At Point Barrow, Alaska, a female captured on June 12 still contained twelve embryos. This indicates that only one litter a year would be born there, and that Mustela rixosa is more prolific than its European representative.

In the more southern latitude least weasels live in forests and about farms, sheltering themselves under logs, brush piles, stone walls, and similar cover. They are always restless and filled with curiosity regarding anything of unusual appearance. When one encounters a man it shows no fear, but slyly moving from one shelter to another, now advancing and now retreating, examines the stranger carefully before going on its way. As they devote practically their entire lives to the destruction of field mice, they are valuable friends of the farmer and should have his good will and protection. Unfortunately for these weasels, no discrimination is shown between them and their larger relatives of more injurious habits.

Among the natives of Alaska all weasels are looked upon with great respect on account of their prowess as hunters. I found this feeling peculiarly strong among the Eskimos, whose existence for ages has depended so largely on the products of the chase. Among them the capture of a weasel meant good luck to the hunter, and to take the rarer least weasel was considered a happy omen. The head and entire skin of the least weasel was highly prized for wearing as an amulet or fetich. Young men eagerly purchased them, paying the full value of a prime marten skin in order to wear them as a personal adornment, that they might thus become endowed with the hunting prowess of this fierce little carnivore. Fathers often bought them to attach to the belts of their small sons, so that the youthful hunters might become imbued with the spirit of this “little chief” among mammals.

THE AMERICAN MINK (Mustela vison and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 555)

In the American mink we have one of the most widely known and valuable fur-bearers of the weasel family. It is a long-bodied animal, but more heavily proportioned than the weasel, and attains a weight of from one and one-half to more than two pounds. It has short legs and walks slowly and rather clumsily with the back arched. When desiring to travel rapidly it moves in a series of rapid easy bounds which it appears able to continue tirelessly.

The minks form a small group of species circumpolar in distribution, and well known in Europe, northern Asia, and in North America. The European animal is closely similar to the North American species and all have the same amphibious habits. The American minks include several different geographic races, which are distributed over all the northern part of the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the mouths of the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers to the Gulf coast in the United States. They are absent from the arid Southwestern States.

Few species are more perfectly adapted to a double mode of life than the mink. It is equally at home slyly searching thickets and bottom-land forests for prey or seeking it with otter-like prowess beneath the water. It is a restless animal, active both by day and by night, although mainly nocturnal.

While usually having definite dens to which they return, minks wander widely and for so small an animal hunt over a large territory and pass from one body of water to another. Their wanderings are most pronounced in fall and again during the mating in spring. They are solitary, their companionship with one another not outliving the mating period.

Mink dens are located wherever a safe and convenient shelter is available, and may be a hole in a bank, made by a muskrat or other animal, a cavity under the roots of a tree, a hollow log, a hollow stump, or other place. The nest is made of grass and leaves lined with feathers, hair, and other soft material. A single litter of from four to twelve small and naked young is born during April or May.

The young remain with the mother throughout the summer, and do not leave her to establish themselves until fall, when they are nearly grown. When captured at an early age they are playful and become attached to the person who cares for them. When caught in a trap they become fiercely aggressive, often uttering squalling shrieks, baring their teeth, and fronting their captor with a truculent air of savage rage. The adults have scent sacs located under the tail like those of a skunk. When angry or much excited they can emit from these an exceedingly acrid and offensive odor, but have no power to eject it forcibly at an enemy.

Minks are bold and courageous in their attitude toward other animals, and attack and kill for food species heavier than themselves, like the varying hare and the muskrat. On land they are persistent hunters, trailing their prey skillfully by scent. They eat mice, rats, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds and birds’ eggs of many kinds, including waterfowl, oven-birds, and other ground-frequenting species. About the waterside they vary this diet by capturing fish of many kinds, which they pursue in the water, snakes, frogs, salamanders, insects, crustaceans, and mussels.

Their prowess is shown by their raids on chicken-houses, where they often kill many grown fowls in a night, and sometimes drag birds heavier than themselves long distances to their dens. A remarkable indication of the varied menu of the mink was exhibited in a nest found by Dr. C. H. Merriam, where the owner had gathered the bodies of a muskrat, a red squirrel, and a downy woodpecker.

The value of the mink’s furry coat has led to its steady pursuit by trappers in all climes, from the coast of Florida to the borders of sluggish streams on Arctic tundras. Millions of them have fallen victims to this warfare and their skins have gone to adorn mankind. In spite of this the mink today occupies all its original territory, and each year yields a fresh harvest of furs.

The mink by preference is a forest animal, living along the wooded bottom-lands of rivers or the thicket-grown borders of small streams, where the rich vegetation gives abundance of shelter and at the same time attracts a wealth of small mammals and birds on which it may prey. From these secure coverts it wanders through the surrounding country at night, visiting many chicken-houses on farms and leaving devastation behind. It is persistent and bold in such forays and in locations near its haunts great care must be exercised to guard against it. Minks have repeatedly raided the enclosures of the National Zoological Park in Washington.

Now and then, on the banks of some wild stream, one will try to appropriate the catch lying at the very feet of a lone fisherman. A naturalist fishing on a stream in northern Canada, seeing a mink making free with his catch, set a small steel trap on the bare ground, and holding the attached chain in one hand raised and slowly drew toward him the fish upon which the mink was feeding. The mink, without hesitation, followed the fish and was caught in the trap.

An abundance of food may modify the preference of the mink for wooded or partly wooded country. The marshy and treeless tundra lying near sea-level in the triangle between the coast of Bering Sea, and the lower parts of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers offers such an attractive situation differing from their usual haunts. The sluggish streams and numberless ponds abound with small fish four to five inches long. Minks swarm in this area to such an extent that the Eskimos who inhabit the district are known among the natives of the surrounding region as the “mink people.” Steel traps are used there, but a primitive method is even more successful. A wicker fence is built across a narrow stream and a small fyke fish-trap placed in it. In swimming along the stream minks pass into the trap like fish, and I knew of from 10 to 15 being thus taken in one day.

During my residence in that region from 10,000 to 15,000 mink skins were caught in this tundra district annually, and the supply appeared to be inexhaustible. With the growing occupation of the continent and the increasing demand for furs, however, the numbers of the mink must surely decrease. To forestall the shortage of furs that seems imminent, efforts are now being made to establish fur farming to replace the declining supply of wild furs with those grown under domestication. The mink appears to be well adapted to successful breeding in captivity. The main question to solve is the relation of the cost of caring for the animals to the value of its pelt in the market.

THE MARTEN, OR AMERICAN SABLE (Martes americana and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 555)

Wild animals possess an endless variety of mental traits which endow them in many instances with marked individualities. Few are more strongly characterized in this respect than the marten. One of the most graceful and beautiful of our forest animals, it frequents the more inaccessible parts of the wilderness and retires shyly before the inroads of the settler’s ax. Its rich brown coat, so highly prized that the pursuit of it goes on winter after winter in all the remote forests of the North, is a source of danger threatening the existence of the species. The full-grown animal weighs five or six pounds and measures nearly three feet in length.

The martens are circumpolar in distribution, and the several species occupy northern lands from England, Europe, and northern Asia to North America. Of the Old World species, the Siberian sable is best known on account of the beauty of its fine, rich fur, which renders it the most valued of all in the fur markets of the world.

The North American marten is a close relative of the Siberian species, and occupies all the wooded parts of North America from the northern limit of trees southward in the forested mountains to Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and the southern part of the Sierra Nevada in California.

Like other members of the weasel tribe, the marten is a fierce and merciless creature of rapine, but unlike the mink and weasel, it avoids the abodes of man and loves the remotest depths of the wilderness.

Martens are endowed with an exceedingly nervous and excitable temperament, combined with all the flashing quickness of weasels. They are more restless than any other among the larger species of their notably restless tribe, and couple with this extraordinary and tireless vigor. This is admirably shown in captivity, when by the hour they dart back and forth, up and down and around their cages with almost incredible speed.

In the forest they climb trees and jump from branch to branch with all the agility of a squirrel—in fact, they pursue and capture red squirrels in fair chase, and have been seen in pursuit of the big California gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus). On the ground they move about quickly, hunting weasel-like, under brush piles and other cover.

Practically every living thing within their power falls victim to their rapacity. They eat minks, weasels, squirrels, chipmunks, wood rats, mice of many kinds, conies, snowshoe hares, ruffed and spruce grouse, and smaller birds of all kinds and their eggs, as well as frogs, fish, beetles, crickets, beechnuts, and a variety of small wild fruits. Unlike minks and weasels, they are not known to kill wantonly more than they need for food.

They make nests of grass, moss, and leaves in hollow trees, under logs, among rocks, and in holes in the ground. Sometimes they have been found in possession of a red squirrel’s nest, probably after having slain and devoured the owner.

The young, varying from one to eight in number, are born in April or May. At first they are naked and helpless, but when large enough accompany the mother on her search for food. This period of schooling lasts until they are forced to take up their separate lives with the approach of winter. Thenceforth they are among the most solitary of animals, showing fierce antagonism toward one another whenever they meet, and associating only during a brief period in the mating season in February or March. Martens show a cold-blooded ferocity toward one another that often renders it dangerous to put two or more in the same cage. When placed in a cage together the male very commonly kills the female by biting her through the skull. At times they utter a loud, shrill squall or shriek, and in traps hiss, growl, and sometimes bark.

Among the dense forests of spruce and lodge-pole pine high up in the mountains of Colorado, martens are sometimes hunted on skis in midwinter, an exciting and often, on these rugged slopes, a dangerous sport. They are not wary about traps and are readily caught by deadfalls and other rude contrivances as well as by steel traps. In Colorado and Montana hundreds of their skins are taken by trappers every winter.

In Siberia the sable has been exterminated by hunting in many districts, and before the present war began had become so scarce in others that the Russian Government closed the season for them for a period of years over nearly all of their range. The same reduction in the numbers of our marten has occurred in most parts of Alaska and elsewhere in its range, and its only hope against extermination lies in stringent protection. Protective regulations are already in force in Alaska.

During the early fur-trading days in northern Canada the number of martens varied between comparative abundance and rarity. These variations were said to occur about every ten years. Some claimed the decrease was due to a migration which the martens were believed to make from one region to another, just as was believed of the lynx. The lack of a corresponding increase in surrounding districts, where trading posts were located, effectually disproved the migration theory. There is little doubt that the increase of martens was due to a reproductive response to a plentiful food supply during years when mice or snowshoe hares were abundant and their decrease was due to a lessening of the numbers of these food animals.

Efforts are being made to domesticate martens and raise them for their skins on fur farms. The main difficulty so far encountered lies in the fiendish manner in which the old males kill the females and the younger males. Although always nervous, they are not difficult to tame, and will be most entertaining and attractive animals to rear if their savage natures can be sufficiently overcome.

THE LITTLE SPOTTED SKUNK (Spilogale putorius and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 558)

The skunks form a distinct section of the weasel family, limited to North and South America. The group is divided into three well-marked sections. One of these, the little spotted skunks, is distinguished from all other mammals by the curious and pleasing symmetry of the black and white markings of the animals. Few more beautiful fur garments are made than those from the skins of these animals in their natural colors. These skunks are smaller than any members of the other groups, varying from a little larger than a large chipmunk to the size of a fox squirrel.

Little spotted skunks include several species and geographic races. All are limited to North America and are rather irregularly distributed from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and from Virginia, Minnesota, Wyoming, and southern British Columbia southward to the Gulf coast, to the end of Lower California, and through Mexico and Central America to Costa Rica. They inhabit a variety of climatic conditions, from the rocky ledges high up on the slopes of the western mountains to the hot desert plains of the Southwest, and to partly forested regions in both temperate and tropical lands. In different parts of the United States they have several other names, including “civet,” “civet cat,” and “hydrophobia skunk.”

The spotted skunks make their homes in whatever shelter is most convenient, whether it be clefts in rocky ledges, slide rock, hollows in logs or stumps, holes dug by themselves in banks or under the shelter of cactuses or other thorny vegetation, the deserted holes of burrowing owls in Florida, or the old dens of various kinds of mammals elsewhere. Thickets, open woods, ocean beaches, and the vicinity of deserted or even occupied buildings on ranches are equally welcome haunts. On the plains of Arizona they have been known to live inside the mummified carcass of a cow, the sun-dried hide of which made an impregnable cover. They have a single litter of from two to six young each year.

Their diet is fully as varied as that of others of the weasel kind, but is made up mainly of insects and other forms injurious to agriculture, including grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and larvæ of many kinds. They feed also on flesh whenever possible and prey on wood rats, mice of many kinds, small ground squirrels, small birds and their eggs, young chickens, lizards, salamanders, and crawfish. This carnivorous diet is further varied with mushrooms, peanuts, persimmons, cactus fruit, and other small fruits. Sometimes the animals locate about occupied habitations in primitive communities, where they give good service by killing the house rats, mice, and cockroaches on the premises. On one occasion a spotted skunk was detected cunningly removing the downy chicks from under a brooding hen without disturbing her.

In comparison with the other skunks these little animals are extremely agile. They are strictly nocturnal and when pursued at night by dogs will climb to safety in a tree like a squirrel. When caught in a trap they struggle and fight far more vigorously than their big relatives. They usually carry the tail in a somewhat elevated position, but when danger threatens hold it upright like a warning signal. If the enemy fails to take heed they shoot two little spraylike jets of liquid bearing the usual offensive skunk odor, and the victim retires without honor.

In writing of these skunks about the Valley of Mexico, in 1628, Dr. Hernandez tells us that “the powerful arm which they use when in peril is the insupportable gas they throw out behind which condenses the surrounding atmosphere so that, as one grave missionary says, it appears as though one could feel it.”

That the little spotted skunk is subject to rabies and has communicated it to many men in the West is unquestionable. It usually bites men who are sleeping on the ground in its haunts, as they commonly do on the western stock ranges.

I have personally known of several instances in northern Arizona of men being bitten by them. The head, face, and hands, being uncovered, are the points attacked. One man in the mountains south of Winslow, Arizona, was bitten on the top of his head in April, 1910, but paid no attention to the slight wound until two months later when he began to have spasms. He then hurried to town and died in great agony the next day. The year following a man in the same district was bitten in the face, and seizing the animal threw it from him in such a manner that it fell on his brother and bit him before he awakened. Both men were given the Pasteur treatment and had no further trouble.

On New Year’s night of 1906, while I was at the village of Cape San Lucas, at the extreme southern end of the Peninsula of Lower California, a large-sized old male spotted skunk entered the open door of a neighboring house and bit through the upper lip of a little girl sleeping on the floor. Her screams brought her father to the rescue, and with a well-aimed blow he killed the offender. The next morning the skunk was brought to me and added to my collection. As I left a few days later I never learned the result of this bite, but while there was informed that a man had died the previous year from a similar bite. The occasional instances of this kind are remembered and appear more numerous than they are in fact. For years many men have slept in the open where these animals abound, without being molested. It is interesting to find that when the voyager Duhaut-Cilly visited the Cape in 1826, the natives feared these skunks because they entered houses at night, biting people and infecting them with hydrophobia.

The little spotted skunks have extremely animated, playful natures, as I have had several occasions to observe. Two instances serve to illustrate this. Once at the mouth of a canyon at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, California, I camped several days at a deserted ranch. At night I spread my blankets on the bare floor of the house, from which the doors were gone. Under it led several burrows of some animal which I at first supposed to be a ground squirrel. Each night while there I was awakened by the sound of little footfalls padding rapidly about over the floor on which I was sleeping, and in the dim light from the moon could see two or three little spotted skunks pursuing one another around me like playful kittens. At the slightest movement on my part they dashed out the door and into their dens under the house. As there was no food of any kind in this room, it was evident that the little fellows were there for a frolic on the smooth board floor.

On another occasion in the mountains of San Luis Potosi, on the Mexican table-land, I found a spring to which bears were coming for water at night. As the bears here appeared to be strictly nocturnal. I ensconced myself in the evening with a dark lantern, amid some small bushes, against a large pine log which sloped downward to the bottom of the gulch near the spring, with the plan to welcome any bears which might come in. An hour or more after dark the clinking rattle of small stones on the far side of the gulch indicated the presence of some animal. The light from the lantern was flashed on the spot and the rifle lowered with exasperation as, running back and forth, turning over stones in search of insects, a spotted skunk was revealed. The movements of this unwelcome visitor were extremely light and graceful, and in my interest in watching them, for a time I forgot the bear. Two or three hours passed and the skunk tired of the hillside and came down to the spring, where he found the offal from a deer which I had placed there for bait. This gave him more to do, and after I had listened to him worry the meat for awhile, I turned on the light and was entertained by the sight thus revealed. The skunk appeared to have a persistent desire to drag away the offal many times his weight. He would seize the edge of one of the lungs and after a hard struggle would get it up on one edge, when the burden would turn over with a flap, whirling the skunk flat on his back each time. Immediately scrambling to his feet, he would give the meat a fierce shake of resentment and repeat the performance.

After a long time the moon arose and the skunk could be plainly seen running back and forth playfully, now biting at the meat and now turning over stones apparently in sheer exuberance of spirit. Then he suddenly mounted the lower end of the log and came galloping up it until he was close to my shoulder. There he stopped and, coming as near as possible, extended his nose within a few inches of my face, and for minute or more stood trying to satisfy himself about this strange object. Satisfied at last, he turned and galloped back down the log and resumed his antics in the gulch, finally working close to the bank three or four yards below me. There he found many small stones and had a fine time rattling them about until I decided that with this disturbing presence I should have little chance for other game. Finding a convenient stone, and locating the skunk as well as possible from the sounds, I tossed it over to try and frighten him away. My aim was too true, for the characteristic skunk retort filled the air with suffocating fumes and I immediately lost interest in further bear hunting.

THE COMMON SKUNK (Mephitis mephitis and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 558)

Probably no American mammal is more generally known and less popular than the skunk. This current odium is due wholly to its possession of a scent sac of malodorous fluid, which it distributes with prompt accuracy when annoyed. The possession of this method of defense is common to all skunks. The term “pole-cat,” sometimes given to all kinds of skunks, is the misuse of a name given Old World martens of several species and to the Cape pole-cat, a South African animal which in form and markings, including the plumelike tail, is remarkably like some of our smaller skunks.

In the preceding article an account was given of the spotted skunks, smallest of the three groups into which these animals are divided. The common skunk and its relatives form another group, which contains some of the larger species of their kind, some of them weighing up to ten pounds or more. These are the typical skunks, so familiar in most parts of the United States, and distinguished by the disproportionately large size of the posterior half of the body and the long, plumelike tail.

The common skunk, with its closely related species, is generally distributed in all varieties of country, except in deep forests and on waterless desert plains. It ranges from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and from Hudson Bay and Great Slave Lake southward to the highlands of Guatemala. The vertical range extends from sea-level up to above timberline in Mexico, where I found one living in a burrow it had dug under a rock at 13,800 feet altitude on the Cofre de Perote, Vera Cruz.

Skunks are most common in areas of mixed woodland and fields, in valley bottoms, and along the brushy borders of creeks and rocky canyons. One of their marked characteristics is a fondness for the vicinity of man. They frequently visit his premises, taking up quarters beneath outbuildings or even under the house itself.

Any convenient shelter appears to satisfy them for a home, and they will occupy the deserted burrows of other animals, small cavities among the rocks, a hollow log, or a hole dug by themselves. A warm nest of grass and leaves is made at the end of the den, where the single litter of young, containing from four to ten, is born in April or May. As soon as the young are old enough they follow the mother, keeping close behind her, often in a long single file along a trail. They are mainly nocturnal, but in summer the mother frequently starts out on an excursion with her young an hour or two before sunset and they may remain abroad all night.

The young family remains united through the following winter, which accounts for finding at times from eight to a dozen in a den. In all the northern parts of their range they hibernate during the two to four months of severest cold weather, coming out sometimes during mild periods. When the season of hibernation ends the family scatters and mating begins. One solitary skunk was found in Canada hibernating in the same burrow, but in a separate chamber, with a woodchuck, evidently an unbidden guest.

As in the case of their relatives, the common skunks are omnivorous, but feed mainly upon insects and rodents injurious to agriculture. They are known to eat great quantities of grasshoppers, besides crickets, cicadas, May beetles, wasps, and larvæ of many kinds. One killed in New Mexico had its stomach crammed with honey bees. Wherever possible they prey upon small rodents, as mice, wood rats, and small spermophiles. To these may be added ground-nesting birds and their eggs, lizards, turtle eggs, snakes, frogs, salamanders, fish, crustaceans, and numerous small fruits. Now and then they visit the farmers’ chicken yards with such disastrous consequences that in many country districts the animals are killed at sight.

It is pleasing to record that a more intelligent view of their real value to farmers, through their destruction of farm pests, is rapidly gaining ground, and they are now being protected in many States. One of their worst traits is their destructiveness to breeding game birds, both upland species, and especially the waterfowl.

Skunks walk on the soles of their feet instead of on their toes, as do so many mammals. The common skunks are wholly terrestrial and move with the deliberation of one without fear of personal violence or of having his dignity assailed. Long experience has taught them that the right of way is theirs. As they amble slowly along, the tail is carried slightly elevated, and when the owner is suspicious of attack, it is raised and the hairs hang drooping like a great plume, conspicuous and unmistakable. If the disturber still refuses to take the hint, a rear view is promptly presented and a discharge made that puts most enemies to flight. Some have thought that the odorous liquid is scattered by the long hairs of the tail, but in fact it is ejected in fine jets from two little tubes connected with the scent sacs on each side of the vent.

When mildly annoyed the big skunks stamp their front feet on the ground and utter little growls of displeasure. By some effort they can be urged into a retreat which may take the form of a clumsy gallop. They are known occasionally to swim streams voluntarily, and even to cross rivers, probably urged by the instinct that so often forces animals of all kinds to move to new feeding grounds.

Although usually safe from annoyance through the protective armament, many skunks, especially the young, each year fall victim to natural enemies, including wolves, coyotes, foxes, badgers, and great horned owls.

The flesh of the skunk is a favorite food among certain tribes of Canadian Indians, and many white men have pronounced it exceedingly palatable, even claiming its superiority over the flesh of domestic fowls. In the narrative of his expedition through the Canadian wilderness many years ago, the naturalist Drummond recorded that when the party was about a day’s journey from Carleton House it had the good fortune to kill a skunk, “which afforded us a comfortable meal.” In the Valley of Mexico I found the natives prize the flesh of these animals as a cure for a certain loathsome disease.

It is well known that large skunks are often extremely fat. The oil produced from them is clear and is said to have unusually penetrating qualities. For many years there was a demand for this oil for various medicinal purposes.

During recent years the fur of skunks has come into great demand, and good prices are paid for prime skins. The animals are so numerous and the catch is so large that they now rank among the most valuable of our fur-bearers. They are gentle animals which readily become domesticated and breed freely in confinement, and many efforts are being made to establish skunk farms. Success in such farming depends wholly on the outlay for upkeep. Skunk farming will probably pay better as a side line, like chickens on the ordinary farm, than to establish regular fur farms. The scent sac may be removed by a slight surgical operation, so there need be no trouble from that source. Common skunks when taken young make affectionate and entertaining pets. They become as tame and playful as kittens, and are vastly more intelligent and interesting.

THE HOG-NOSED SKUNK (Conepatus mesoleucus and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 559)

The third and last group of skunks contains a number of species showing well-marked differences from the two groups already described. The species vary in size, but among them is included the largest of all skunks. All are characterized by comparatively short hair, especially on the tail, and this appendage lacks the plumelike appearance observed in other skunks. The nose is prolonged into a distinct “snout,” naked on the top and sides and evidently used for rooting in the earth after the manner of a pig. In addition, the front feet are armed with long, heavy claws, and the front legs and shoulders are provided with a strong muscular development for digging, as in a badger. This likeness has led to the use in some places of the appropriate name “badger skunk” for these animals. The single white stripe along the back, and including the tail, is a common pattern with these skunks, but this marking is considerably varied, as in the common species.

The hog-nosed skunks are the only representatives of the skunk tribe in South America, where various species occupy a large part of the continent. They appear to form a South American group of mammals which has extended its range northward through Central America, Mexico, and across the border of the United States to central Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In Mexico they range from sea-level to above 10,000 feet altitude on the mountains of the interior.

The hair on these skunks is coarse and harsh, lacking the qualities which render the coats of their northern relatives so valuable. Where their range coincides with that of the common skunks, the local distribution of the two is practically the same. They live along the bottom-lands of watercourses, where vegetation is abundant and the supply of food most plentiful, or in canyons and on rocky mountain slopes.

For shelter they dig their own burrows, usually in a bank, or under a rock, or the roots of a tree, but do not hesitate to take possession of the deserted burrows of other animals, or of natural cavities among the rocks. Owing to their strictly nocturnal habits, they are much less frequently seen than the common skunks, even in localities where they are numerous. In fact it is only within the last few years that their presence in many parts of the southwestern border has become known.

Although both the little spotted and common skunks live mainly on insects, the hog-nosed skunks are even more insectivorous in their feeding habits. The bare snout appears to be used constantly for the purpose of rooting out beetles, grubs, and larvæ of various kinds from the ground.

On the highlands of Mexico I have many times camped in localities where patches of ground were rooted up nightly by these skunks to a depth of two or three inches as thoroughly as might have been done by small pigs. In such places I repeatedly failed to capture them by traps baited with meat, the insects and grubs they were finding apparently being more attractive food. I have had similar failures in trapping for coyotes with meat bait in localities where they were feeding fat on swarms of large beetles and crickets. The persistence with which the hog-nosed skunks hunt insects renders them a valuable aid to farmers.

In addition to grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, flies, grubs, and other larvæ, and many other insects, they are known to eat wood rats, mice, and the small fruit of cactuses and other plants. The stomach of one of these skunks examined in Texas contained about 400 beetles.

One Texas naturalist writes that he has lost a number of young kids which had their noses bitten off, and in one instance caught one of these skunks mutilating a kid in this manner. He also states that they pull down and eat corn when it is in the “roasting-ear” stage.

Far less is known concerning the habits of hog-nosed skunks than of the other species of these animals. The number of young appears to be small, judging from the record of a single embryo found in one animal and in another instance of two young found in a nest located in a hollow stump. They have a curiously stupid, sluggish manner and have even less vivacity than the somewhat sedate common skunk. No use is made of their skins in this country or in Mexico, but the gigantic natives of Patagonia make robes of them which are worn like great cloaks.

THE NINE-BANDED ARMADILLO (Dasypus novemcincta and its relatives)

(For illustration, see page 559)

Armadillos are distinguished from other mammals by having the nearly, or quite, hairless skin developed into a bony armor covering the upperparts of the head and body and all of the tail. They lack teeth in the front of both upper and lower jaws, and are members of the group of toothless animals which includes the ant-eaters. The insects they feed on are licked up by the sticky surface of their extensile tongues.

In the remote past many species of armadillos, some of gigantic size, roamed the plains of South America, and a number of small species still exist there. These animals are peculiar to America and have their center of abundance in the southern continent.

The nine-banded species ranges over an enormous territory and is subdivided into a number of geographic races, living from southern Texas through Mexico and Central America to Argentina. In Mexico its vertical distribution extends from sea-level up to an altitude of about 10,000 feet on the mountains of the interior. Like the hog-nosed skunk, it no doubt originated as a member of the South American fauna and has spread northward to its present limits. It is one of the larger of the living representatives of this curious group of animals and reaches a weight of from twelve to fifteen pounds.

As might be surmised from its appearance, the armadillo is a stupid animal, living a monotonous life of restricted activities. Its sight and hearing are poor, and the armored skin gives it a stiff-legged gait and immobile body. From these characteristics, combined with the small head hung low on a short neck, it has in life an odd resemblance in both form and motion to a small pig; it jogs along in its trails or from one feeding place to another with the same little stiff trotting gait and self-centered air. If alarmed it will break into a clumsy gallop, but moves so slowly that it may be overtaken by a man on foot. So poor is its eyesight that a person may approach openly within about thirty yards before being noticed.

When alarmed the armadillo immediately runs to the shelter of its burrow, but may easily be caught in one’s hands, especially if intercepted on the way to its den. When caught it will struggle to escape, and while it may coil up in a ball in the presence of a dog or other mammal foe, I never saw one try to protect itself in this way. While presumably serving for protective purposes, the armor is flexible on the sides of the body, and I have found the remains of many armadillos where they had been killed and eaten by coyotes or other predatory beasts. The armor would no doubt be sufficient protection to enable them to escape to cover from the attack of birds of prey. They are mainly nocturnal animals, but are frequently seen abroad by day and in some places appear to be out equally by day or night.

This armadillo lives by preference amid the cover afforded by forests, brushy jungle, tall grass, or other vegetation. In the midst of such shelter it usually digs its own burrow a few yards deep in a bank or hill slope, beneath a stump, under the roots of a tree, or a rock, or even on level ground. It will also occupy small caves in limestone rock. At times it shows a piglike fondness for a mud bath, and the prints of its armor may be found where it has wallowed in miry spots.

Well-beaten and conspicuous trails lead from the burrows often for half a mile or more, frequently branching through the thickets in various directions. Armadillo burrows sometimes accommodate strange neighbors, as was shown by one in Texas which was dug out, and in addition to containing the owner in his den at the end, was found to be occupied by a four-foot rattlesnake and a half-grown cottontail rabbit, each in a side chamber of its own.

The food of the armadillo consists almost entirely of many species of insects, among which ants appear to predominate. When searching for food the animals become so intent that they may be cautiously approached and closely observed or captured by hand. They root about among fallen leaves and other loose vegetation and soft earth, now and then digging up some hidden grub or beetle. At night they visit newly plowed fields in their haunts, rooting in the mellow earth. They are accused of digging up plants in gardens during their nocturnal wanderings, and in Texas have been charged with robbing hens’ nests of eggs, and of reducing the supply of wild turkeys and quail by breaking up the nests, all of which needs confirmation. Their method of feeding appears to vary considerably, as they have been seen rising on their hind legs to secure small caterpillars infesting large weeds.

The insect food eaten by the nine-banded armadillo in Texas, as known from examination of stomach contents, covers a wide range of insect and other small life, including many species of grasshoppers, crickets, roaches, caterpillars, beetles, ants, spiders, centipedes, and earthworms. As the list includes also wireworms and other noxious species, these inoffensive animals deserve thorough protection as a most useful aid to the farmer.

Some time from February to April each year, litters of from four to eight young are born. They have their eyes open at birth, and the armor is soft and flexible like fine leather. The hardening of the skin into a bony armor is progressive, continuing until after the animal fully completes its growth. As soon as the young are able to travel they trot along with the old one during her foraging trips.

Early one afternoon, when riding along a trail in the heavy forest of southern Oaxaca, accompanied by an Indian boy and a pack of dogs, I suddenly came upon an old armadillo and eight young about two-thirds grown. They had heard our approach and stood motionless in a compact little group half hidden in the grass. I had barely time to stop my horse when the dogs spied them and made a rush. The armadillos darted into the undergrowth in every direction like a litter of pigs, and with the exception of two caught by the dogs gained safe refuge in their burrow. This we found dug in the level ground about fifty yards from where we encountered them.

The Maya Indians of the Peninsula of Yucatan have a legend that the black-headed vulture (Catharista atrata) in old age changes into an armadillo. The tale runs, that when a vulture becomes very, very old it notifies its companions that the time has come and alights before a hole in the ground that resembles the den of an armadillo. The other vultures bring food and the old one remains there for a long time. Its wings disappear, the feathers are lost, and when the change is complete the newly created armadillo enters the hole and begins its new life. If skepticism is expressed as to this metamorphosis, the Indians point out as proof of the legend the similarity between the appearance of the bald pate of the vulture and that of the armadillo.