Skunk Tracks

The snow was melting fast and I thought as I came out of the cabin that I smelled something very familiar in the spring air, the unmistakeable and decided tang of skunk. I stood and sniffed the air until I was sure, for it was still rather early for them to be abroad, and then went out for a survey to see which of the tribe had had the courage to break the long hibernation.

I hadn't gone far before I found a deep, well-beaten trail coming from beneath a pile of old logs, laying where the grass had been deep and still covered with a good drift of snow. The trail led from a sort of burrow going under one end toward a swamp nearby where I knew there were plenty of meadow mice and other things that might be of interest to an animal that hadn't eaten a good meal for months.

I could see by the trail that the skunk had made the trip from its hideout to the swamp many times, for the runway was well trampled. No doubt the warm nights and the warmer days had had their effect and that hibernation was probably over. On one of his first trips out, when still on edge and nervous, something had frightened him, perhaps the hooting of a horned owl, or a branch creaking back in the woods, just enough for the warning protective odor to be released.

I met a farm boy last fall out digging skunks, so he said. "Easy to get 'em out, before the ground is froze," he confided to me. "Get a dollar, sometimes three or four if they're good and black and haven't got too big a white stripe."

He had a dog along, who helped him locate the dens, a dog that was no doubt skunk-wise and had finished off a good many. I watched that boy go off down the edge of a field, thought of how many farm boys throughout the country earn themselves a little extra money, thanks to the common skunk.

For the skunk is a prolific chap, has a wide distribution, seems to thrive close to civilization and to hold its own in spite of constant trapping. Great numbers of pelts reach the markets each year, from 75,000 to 125,000 on the average, and most of them caught by farm boys rather than professional trappers.

The fur is durable and beautiful, the best pelts the darkest with a minimum of white. It is used for short jackets and trip and before the war figured largely in the European export trade.

For a very obvious reason, the skunk is not a good pet and possibly will not be one even though it can be deodorized. Neither are they very successful in the fur farming game, so chances are they will play a part in the farm boy income for some time to come.

The skunk will eat almost anything, is insectivorous, will hunt and eat turtle eggs, most anything it can find in the way of food.

And strangely enough, I actually do like the smell of a skunk. The strong musky odor in the air of a spring night is something primitive and virile and I almost said beautiful. But it does bring back memories, for whoever has smelled the skunk can never forget it or the visions of misty meadows in the spring darkness, damp trails and logging roads and country lanes that seem inseparably a part of it.