. Wild life near home . of eat-ing ones husband or wife, ones father or mother,has never struck the skunk as out of the far as my observation goes, the supreme ques-tion with him is, Can this thing be swallowed?Such thoughts as, What is it? How does it taste?Will it digest? Is it good form?—no skunk sincethe line began ever allowed to interfere with hisdinner. An enviable disregard, this of dietetics !To eat everything with a relish ! If the testi-mony of Maine farmers can be credited, this ani-mal is absol utely omnivorous. During the winterthe skunks burrow and sleep, several of
. Wild life near home . of eat-ing ones husband or wife, ones father or mother,has never struck the skunk as out of the far as my observation goes, the supreme ques-tion with him is, Can this thing be swallowed?Such thoughts as, What is it? How does it taste?Will it digest? Is it good form?—no skunk sincethe line began ever allowed to interfere with hisdinner. An enviable disregard, this of dietetics !To eat everything with a relish ! If the testi-mony of Maine farmers can be credited, this ani-mal is absol utely omnivorous. During the winterthe skunks burrow and sleep, several of themin the same hole. When they go in they are asfat as September woodchucks; but long beforespring, the farmers tell me, the skunks growso lean and hungry that, turning cannibal, theyfall upon their weaker comrades and devourthem, only the strongest surviving until thespring. In August, along the Kennebec, I found theskunks attacking the sugar corn. They strip theears that hang close to the ground, and gnaw the[288]. •Thefumilv fullowed.^ milky grain. But they do most damage amongthe chickens. For downright destructiveness, aknowing old skunk, with a nice taste for pulletsand a thorough acquaintance with the barn-yard,discounts even Reynard. Reynard is the reputedarch-enemy of poultry, yet there is a good dealof the sportsman about him; he has some sort ofhonor, a sense of the decency of the game. Theskunk, on the contrary, is a poacher, a slaugh-terer for the mere sake of it. My host, in a singlenight, had fourteen hens killed by a skunk thatdug under the coop and deliberately bit themthrough the neck. He is not so cunning nor soswift as the fox, but the skunk is no stupid. Heis cool and calm and bold. He will advanceupon and capture a hen-house, and be off to hisden, while a fox is still studying his map of thefarm. Yet, like every other predatory creature, theskunk more than balances his debt for corn andchickens by his credit for the destruction ofobnoxious vermin. He
Size: 1208px × 2070px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1901
