At the stroke of midnight I have been halted in my hurried walk by these notes. They are a bit of the wild north which may even enter within a city, and three years ago I trapped a fine gander and a half a dozen of his flock in the New York Zoological Park, where they have lived ever since and reared their golden-hued goslings, which otherwise would have broken their shells on some Arctic waste, with only the snowbirds to admire, and to be watched with greedy eyes by the Arctic owls. A haze on the far horizon, The infinite tender sky, The ripe, rich tints of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And ever on upland and lowland, The charm of the goldenrod-- Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. W. H. Carruth. A PLEA FOR THE SKUNK In spite of constant persecution the skunk is without doubt the tamest of all of our wild animals, and shares with the weasel and mink the honour of being one of the most abundant of the carnivores, or flesh-eaters, near our homes. This is a great achievement for the skunk,--to have thus held its own in the face of ever advancing and destroying civilisation. But the same characteristics which enable it to hold its ground are also those which emancipate it from its wild kindred and give it a unique position among animals. Its first cousins, the minks and weasels, all secrete pungent odours, which are unpleasant enough at close range, but in the skunk the great development of these glands has caused a radical change in its habits of life and even in its physical make-up. Watch a mink creeping on its sinuous way,--every action and glance full of fierce wildness, each step telling of insatiable seeking after living, active prey. The boldest rat flees in frantic terror at the hint of this animal's presence; but let man show himself, and with a demoniacal grin of hatred the mink slinks into covert. Now follow a skunk in its wanderings as it comes out of its hole in early evening, slowly stretches and yawns, and with hesitating, rolling gait ambles along, now and then sniffing in the grass and seizing some sluggish grasshopper or cricket. Fearlessness and confidence are what its gait and manner spell. The world is its debtor, and all creatures in its path are left unmolested, only 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!"