the way of either. Walking
through the summer fields at twilight, I have come near stepping upon
him, and was much the more disturbed of the two.

He has a secret to keep and knows it, and is careful not to betray
himself until he can do so with the most telling effect. I have known
him to preserve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap, and look
the very picture of injured innocence, manoeuvring carefully and
deliberately to extricate his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws.
Do not by any means take pity on him, and lend a helping hand!

How pretty his face and head! How fine and delicate his teeth, like a
weasel's or a cat's! When about a third grown, he looks so well that one
covets him for a pet. My neighbor once captured a young one, which he
kept over a year, and which afforded him much amusement. He named it
Mahomet.

No animal is more cleanly in its habits than he. He is not an awkward
boy who cuts his own face with his whip; and neither his flesh nor his
fur hints the weapon with which he is armed. The most silent creature
known to me, he makes no sound, so far as I have observed, save a
diffuse, impatient noise, like that produced by beating your hand with a
whisk-broom, when the farm-dog has discovered his retreat in the stone
fence. He renders himself obnoxious to the farmer by his partiality for
hens' eggs and young poultry. He is a confirmed epicure, and at
plundering hen-roosts an expert. Not the full-grown fowls are his
victims, but the youngest and most tender. At night Mother Hen receives
under her maternal wings a dozen newly hatched chickens, and with much
pride and satisfaction feels them all safely tucked away in her
feathers. In the morning she is walking about disconsolately, attended
by only two or three of all that pretty brood. What has happened? Where
are they gone? That pickpocket, Sir Mephitis, could solve the mystery.
Quietly has he approached, under cover of darkness, and one by one
relieved her of her precious charge. Look closely, and you will see
their little yellow legs and beaks, or part of a mangled form, lying
about on the ground. Or, before the hen has hatched, he may find her
out, and, by the same sleight of hand, remove every egg, leaving only
the empty blood-stained shells to witness against him. The birds,
especially the ground-builders, suffer in like manner from his
plundering propensities.

[Illustration: SKUNK]

The secretion upon which he relies for defen