In New England Fields and Woods

<h2><SPAN name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></SPAN>XXXII</h2> <p class="caption">THE SKUNK</p> <p>Always and everywhere in evil repute and bad odor, hunted, trapped, and killed, a pest and a fur-bearer, it is a wonder that the skunk is not exterminated, and that he is not even uncommon.</p> <p>With an eye to the main chance, the fur-trapper spares him when fur is not prime, but when the letter "R" has become well established in the months the cruel trap gapes for him at his outgoing and incoming, at the door of every discovered burrow, while all the year round the farmer, sportsman, and poultry-grower wage truceless war against him.</p> <p>Notwithstanding this general outlawry, when you go forth of a winter morning, after a night of thaw or tempered chill, you see his authentic signature on the snow, the unmistakable diagonal row of four footprints each, or<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> short-spaced alternate tracks, where he has sallied out for a change from the subterranean darkness of his burrow, or from his as rayless borrowed quarters beneath the barn, to the starlight or pale gloom of midnight winter landscape.</p> <p>More often are you made aware of his continued survival by another sense than sight, when his far-reaching odor comes down the vernal breeze or waft of summer air, rankly overbearing all the fragrance of springing verdure, or perfume of flowers and new-mown hay, and you well know who has somewhere and somehow been forced to take most offensively the defensive.</p> <p>It may be said of him that his actions speak louder than his words. Yet the voiceless creature sometimes makes known his presence by sound, and frightens the belated farm boy, whom he curiously follows with a mysterious, hollow beating of his feet upon the ground.</p> <p>Patches of neatly inverted turf in a grub-infested pasture tell those who know his ways that the skunk has been doing the farmer good service here, and<span class="pagenum">[156]</span> making amends for poultry stealing, and you are inclined to regard him with more favor. But when you come upon the empty shells of a raided partridge nest, your sportsman's wrath is enkindled against him for forestalling your gun. Yet who shall say that you had a better right to the partridges than he to the eggs?</p> <p>If you are so favored, you can but admire the pretty sight of the mother with her cubs basking in a sunny nook or leading them afield in single file, a black and white procession.</p> <p>If by another name the rose would smell as sweet, our old acquaintance is in far better odor for change of appellation from that so suggestive of his rank offenses. What beauty of fair faces would be spoiled with scorn by a hint of the vulgar name which in unadorned truth belongs to the handsome glossy black muff and boa that keep warm those dainty fingers and swan-like neck. Yet through the furrier's art and cunning they undergo a magic transformation into something to be worn with pride, and the every-day wear of the despised<span class="pagenum">[157]</span> outlaw becomes the prized apparel of the fair lady.</p> <p>If unto this humble night wanderer is vouchsafed a life beyond his brief earthly existence, imagine him in that unhunted, trapless paradise of uncounted eggs and callow nestlings, grinning a wide derisive smile as he beholds what fools we mortals be, so fooled by ourselves and one another.<span class="pagenum">[158]</span></p> <hr class="chapter"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />