=THE COMMON SKUNK= (=Mephitis mephitis= and its relatives) (_For illustration, see page 558_) Probably no American mammal is more generally known and less popular than the skunk. This current odium is due wholly to its possession of a scent sac of malodorous fluid, which it distributes with prompt accuracy when annoyed. The possession of this method of defense is common to all skunks. The term “pole-cat,” sometimes given to all kinds of skunks, is the misuse of a name given Old World martens of several species and to the Cape pole-cat, a South African animal which in form and markings, including the plumelike tail, is remarkably like some of our smaller skunks. In the preceding article an account was given of the spotted skunks, smallest of the three groups into which these animals are divided. The common skunk and its relatives form another group, which contains some of the larger species of their kind, some of them weighing up to ten pounds or more. These are the typical skunks, so familiar in most parts of the United States, and distinguished by the disproportionately large size of the posterior half of the body and the long, plumelike tail. The common skunk, with its closely related species, is generally distributed in all varieties of country, except in deep forests and on waterless desert plains. It ranges from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and from Hudson Bay and Great Slave Lake southward to the highlands of Guatemala. The vertical range extends from sea-level up to above timberline in Mexico, where I found one living in a burrow it had dug under a rock at 13,800 feet altitude on the Cofre de Perote, Vera Cruz. Skunks are most common in areas of mixed woodland and fields, in valley bottoms, and along the brushy borders of creeks and rocky canyons. One of their marked characteristics is a fondness for the vicinity of man. They frequently visit his premises, taking up quarters beneath outbuildings or even under the house itself. Any convenient shelter appears to satisfy them for a home, and they will occupy the deserted burrows of other animals, small cavities among the rocks, a hollow log, or a hole dug by themselves. A warm nest of grass and leaves is made at the end of the den, where the single litter of young, containing from four to ten, is born in April or May. As soon as the young are old enough they follow the mother, keeping close behind her, often in a long single file along a trail. They are mainly nocturnal, but in summer the mother frequently starts out on an excursion with her young an hour or two before sunset and they may remain abroad all night.