nly on evidence of good behaviour. Far from need of
concealment, its furry coat is striped with a broad band of white,
signalling in the dusk or the moonlight, "Give me room to pass and go in
peace! Trouble me and beware!"

Degenerate in muscles and vitality, the skunk must forego all strenuous
hunts and trust to craft and sudden springs, or else content himself with
the humble fare of insects, helpless young birds, and poor, easily
confused mice. The flesh of the skunk is said to be sweet and toothsome,
but few creatures there are who dare attempt to add it to their bill of
fare! A great horned owl or a puma in the extremity of starvation, or a
vulture in dire stress of hunger,--probably no others.

Far from wilfully provoking an attack, the skunk is usually content to go
on his way peacefully, and when one of these creatures becomes accustomed
to the sight of an observer, no more interesting and, indeed, safer object
of study can be found.

Depart once from the conventional mode of greeting a skunk,--and instead
of hurling a stone in its direction and fleeing, place, if the opportunity
present itself, bits of meat in its way evening after evening, and you
will soon learn that there is nothing vicious in the heart of the skunk.
The evening that the gentle animal appears leading in her train a file of
tiny infant skunks, you will feel well repaid for the trouble you have
taken. Baby skunks, like their elders, soon learn to know their friends,
and are far from being at hair-trigger poise, as is generally supposed.

THE LESSON OF THE WAVE

The sea and the sky and the shore were at perfect peace on the day when
the young gull first launched into the air, and flew outward over the
green, smooth ocean. Day after day his parents had brought him fish and
squid, until his baby plumage fell from him and his beautiful
wing-feathers shot forth,--clean-webbed and elastic. His strong feet had
carried him for days over the expanse of sand dunes and pebbles, and now
and then he had paddled into deep pools and bathed in the cold salt water.
Most creatures of the earth are limited to one or the other of these two
elements, but now the gull was proving his mastery over a third. The land,
the sea, were left below, and up into the air drifted the beautiful bird,
every motion confident with the instinct of ages.

The usefulness of his mother's immaculate breast now becomes apparent. A
school of small fish basking near the surfa