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 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."