The motto of the next sleeper is, “Don’t hurry, others will.” If you meet in your wanderings a black-and-white animal wearing a pointed nose, a bushy tail, and an air of justified confidence, avoid any altercation with him. The skunk discovered the secret of the gas-attack a million years before the Boche. He is one of the best friends of the farmer—and the worst treated. Given a fair chance, every week he will eat several times his weight in mice and insects. Moreover, with the muskrat he contributes divers furs to the market, whose high-sounding names disguise their lowly origin. During the coldest part of the winter he retires to his burrow and sleeps fitfully. He is the last to go to bed and the first to get up; and on any warm day in late winter you may see his close-set, alternate, stitch-like tracks in the snow. The black-and-white banner of skunk-kind is a huge bushy resplendent tail, sometimes as wide as it is long. At the very tip is set a tuft like the white plume of Henry of Navarre. When it stands straight up, the battle is on, and wise wild-folk remove themselves elsewhere with exceeding swiftness. As for the simple—they wish they had.
The armament of this Seventh Sleeper is simple but effective. It consists of two scent glands located near the base of the tail, which empty into a movable duct or pipe which can be protruded some distance. Through this duct, by means of large contractile muscles, a stream of liquid musk can be propelled with incredible accuracy, and with a range of from six to ten feet. Moreover the skunk’s accurate breech-loading and repeating weapon has one device not yet found in any man-made artillery. Each gland, besides the hole for long-range purposes, is pierced with a circle of smaller holes through which the deadly gas can be sprayed in a cloud for work at close quarters. The skunk’s battery can be operated over the bow or from port or starboard, but rarely astern.
THE SEVENTH SLEEPER—THE SKUNK
The liquid musk itself is a clear, golden-yellow fluid full of little bubbles of the devastating gas, and curiously enough is almost identical in appearance with the venom of the rattlesnake. As to its odor, it has been described feelingly as a mixture of perfume-musk, essence of garlic, burning sulphur, and sewer-gas, raised to the thousandth power. Its effect is very much like that produced by the fumes of ammonia, another animal product, or the mustard-gas of modern warfare. It may cause blindness, convulsions, and such constriction and congestion of the breathing passages as even to bring about death. Some individuals and animals, however, seem to be more or less immune to the effects of this secretion. I remember once attending by invitation a possum hunt conducted by a number of noted possumists of color. We were accompanied by a bevy of miscellaneous dogs. The possums were generally found wandering here and there among the thickets, or located in low persimmon trees. Every now and then one of the dogs would bring to bay a strolling skunk. As the skins had a considerable market value, these skunks were regarded as the special prizes of the chase. The hunters dispatched them by a quick blow across the back which broke the spine. Such a blow paralyzed the muscles and effectually prevented any further artillery practice on the part of the skunk which received it. Before it could be delivered, both the hunter and the dog were usually exposed to an unerring barrage, which however seemed to cause them no especial inconvenience. Before long every hunter, except myself, had one or more skunks tucked away in his pockets.
It was a long, strong night. Before it was over I was in some doubt as to whether I had been attending a possum hunt or had taken part in a skunk chase. My family had no doubt whatever on the subject when I reached home the next morning. I was earnestly invited to tarry in the wilderness until such time as I could obtain a complete change of raiment. Thereafter I tried to give my hunting clothes away to the worthy poor. Said poor, however, would have none of them, and they repose in a lonely grave in a Philadelphia back-yard even unto this day.
I saw him last fall sitting up like a little post in the Half-Moon Lot where the blind blue gentian grows. Every once in a while he would drop down and begin to nibble again, only to stop and sit up stiff and straight on sentry duty. For the gray, grizzled woodchuck is as wary as he is fat. Watchfulness is the price of his life.
Once I spied him far out in a clover-patch, nibbling away at the pink sweet blossoms as I passed along the road. At the bar-way a chipmunk leaped into the wall with a sharp squeak. Without even stopping to raise his head, Mr. Woodchuck scuttled through the clover, and dived into his burrow. It was a bit of animal team-work such as takes place when a fox or a deer uses a far-away crow or a jay as a picket, and dashes away at its warning of the coming of an enemy.