these birds, pressed by hunger, often commit the fearful mistake of
attacking the animal. My friend Mr. Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a
communication to the _Ibis,_ describes an encounter he actually
witnessed between a carancho and a skunk. Riding home one afternoon, he
spied a skunk "shuffling along in the erratic manner usual to that
odoriferous quadruped;" following it at a very short distance was an
eagle-vulture, evidently bent on mischief. Every time the bird came near
the bushy tail rose menacingly; then the carancho would fall behind,
and, after a few moments' hesitation, follow on again. At length,
growing bolder, it sprung forward, seizing the threatening tail with its
claw, but immediately after "began staggering about with dishevelled
plumage, tearful eyes, and a profoundly woe-begone expression on its
vulture face. The skunk, after turning and regarding its victim with an
I-told-you-so look for a few moments, trotted unconcernedly off."

I was told in Patagonia by a man named Molinos, who was frequently
employed by the Government as guide to expeditions in the desert, that
everywhere throughout that country the skunk is abundant. Some years ago
he was sent with two other men to find and treat with an Indian chief
whose whereabouts were not known. Far in the interior Molinos was
overtaken by a severe winter, his horses died of thirst and fatigue, and
during the three bitterest months of the year he kept himself and his
followers alive by eating the flesh of skunks, the only wild animal that
never failed them. No doubt, on those vast sterile plains where the
skunk abounds, and goes about by day and by night careless of enemies,
the terrible nature of its defensive weapon is the first lesson
experience teaches to every young eagle, fox, wild cat, and puma.

Dogs kill skunks when made to do so, but it is not a sport they delight
in. One moonlight night, at home, I went out to where the dogs, twelve