The food and tool-house should be in the pen for convenience. There should be mice and rat-proof vessels to keep the oatmeal and dry biscuit, cheese, and meat in. It should be equipped with a large boiler for boiling oatmeal and meat in. The meat may also be smoked as this will preserve it, and is greatly preferred by the animals. The meat may be hung out of reach of the rats in sacks. 9.—Feeding. Skunks like most animals are omnivorous. A continuous unbroken diet of meat would eventually wipe out the stock; as would a diet solely vegetable. Moderate varied feeding is essential. Adult skunks are fed once a day, they themselves prefer it after dark. Staple articles of food are beef, rabbit, cow liver, chicken giblets, oatmeal, and other porridge, cooked potatoes and milk; anything a dog will eat with fruit and insects added. Be sure the meat is clear of infection. Another staple article of food is a bread made of bran and shorts. Mix with three quarts of sour milk, enough flour to make a stiff dough. Roll dough out until it is an inch thick and bake for an hour like bread in a hot oven. This is much relished by all fur-bearing animals, and is still more acceptable if 9 flavored with a few spoonfuls of black molasses. Milk must be given sparingly unless it agrees with the stock. Once a week is enough, more than that is liable to induce scouring and other disorders. Half a dog biscuit, and a few scraps of meat are enough for a skunk’s daily allowance. Of course some should have more than others according to their needs. A brood-mother growing or suckling her young should have as much as she can eat twice a day, morning and evening. When winter comes, skunks retire to their dens and eat nothing for weeks. In March the feeding is resumed and in April the brood mothers are extra fed with a preponderance of meat, much of it raw. It costs from twenty-five cents to a dollar to feed a skunk from June first to December first. Meat and fresh water are necessary at all times for brood-mothers, for if this is neglected they will devour the young as soon as born. 10.—Water Troughs. Skunks drink much, and often. They must have plenty of fresh water at all times; especially when the young are expected. The vessel that the water at all times is kept in should be washed every day. In winter the skunks lap up snow instead of water. 11.—Examining Box. No cautious man would undertake to examine a wild skunk as he would a dog or rabbit. Yet it is important to know sex and condition of each new skunk as it arrives. This may be easily and quickly done by means of an examining box. This is a small box 10 by 8 by 6 covered with 10 a chicken wire of about one inch mesh on the top. There should be a six inch entrance at one end of the box. On the solid wood bottom is a handle which is of course the top, when the box is turned wire side down.