scene will be quickly discovered and set down to the right cause.

In that not always trustworthy book _The Natural History of Chili,_
Molina tells us how they deal with the animal in the trans-Andine
regions. "When one appears," he says, "some of the company begiu by
caressing it, until an opportunity offers for one of them to seize it by
the tail. In this position the muscles become contracted, the animal is
unable to eject its fluid, and is quickly despatched." One might just as
well talk of caressing a cobra de capello; yet this laughable fiction
finds believers all over South and North America. Professor Baird
gravely introduces it into his great work on the mammalia. I was once
talking about animals in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine
officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encampment, he had asked
the savages how they contrived to kill skunks without making even a life
in the desert intolerable. A grave old Cacique informed him that the
secret was to go boldly up to the animal, take it by the tail, and
despatch it; for, he said, when you fear it not at all, then it respects
your courage and dies like a lamb--sweetly. The officer, continuing his
story, said that on quitting the Indian camp he started a skunk, and,
glad of an opportunity to test the truth of what he had heard,
dismounted and proceeded to put the Indian plan in practice. Here the
story abruptly ended, and when I eagerly demanded to hear the sequel,
the amateur hunter of furs lit a cigarette and vacantly watched the
ascending smoke. The Indians aro grave jokers, they seldom smile; and
this old traditional skunk-joke, which has run the length of a
continent, finding its way into many wise books, is their revenge on a
superior race.

I have shot a great many eagles, and occasionally a carancho (Polyborus
tharus), with the plumage smelling strongly of skunk, which shows that