The zorille, ([fig. 188.]) which is also called mauripita, is still smaller, and has a beautiful tail, as bushy as that of the chinch, from which he differs however in the disposition of the colours on his coat. He has several long white streaks, which run longitudinally from the head to the middle of the back, on a black ground, and others which pass transversely over the loins, the crupper, and the insertion of the tail, one half of which is black and the other white, whereas the back of the chinch is nearly all the same colour.
Kalm, speaking of this animal, says, “one of them came near the farm where I lived. It was in winter, and during the night; the dogs that were upon the watch pursued him until he discharged his urine against them. Although I was in bed, and he at that time had got to some distance, I thought I should have been suffocated, and the cows and oxen, by their lowings, shewed how much they were affected by the stench. About the end of the same year another of these animals crept into our cellar, but did not exhale the smallest scent. A foolish woman, however, perceiving him one night by the shining of his eyes, disturbed and killed him; from that moment the stench began to spread, the whole cellar was instantly filled with it to such a degree that the woman kept her bed for several days, and all the meat, bread, and other provisions in the place, were so infected that they were obliged to be thrown out of doors.”
These animals are somewhat like the European pole-cats; they also resemble them in their natural habits, and the physical results of their generation are the same. The pole-cat is the most offensive animal for its scent in this continent; it is only stronger in the stinkards, whose species are very numerous in America, whereas there is only one of the pole-cat race in all the old continent; for I do not believe, with Kolbe, that the animal he calls the stinking otter, and which seems to be a real stinkard, exists as a native at the Cape of Good Hope; and possibly Kolbe, who is not very exact, has borrowed his description from P. Zuchel, whom he has quoted as having seen that animal in Brasil. The animal of New Spain, called by Fernandes the ortohua, seems to be the same animal as the Peruvian zorille; and the tepemaxtle, mentioned by the same author, may probably be the conapate, which is found in New Spain, as well as in Louisiana and Carolina.
Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 190. Vison. FIG. 189. Pekan.
FIG. 191. Canadian Otter.