Skunks usually raise from 6 to 10 kittens in a season. If taken young they are easily tamed and make pretty pets, for they are cleanly in habit and rarely emit their offensive secretion save when provoked. The families remain to gether for about a year, and during the coldest months of winter they all hibernate together in the same burrow. It seems to be fully estab lished that the skunk is affected with a disease similar to canine rabies and that fatal cases of hydrophobia have resulted from the bite of even apparently healthy animals.
The skunks of the genus Spilogale are smaller and differ in the depressed skull, un arched above. The white stripes are more numerous and often incomplete. The 12 de scribed species are mostly confined to the western and southern portions of the United States and to Mexico. One species, the little striped skunk (S. 'ingests), is abundant from Florida to Virginia and westward to Mississippi. It is about 14 inches long, with a broad white patch on the forehead, four white parallel dorsal stripes much broken behind, and a white tip to the tail. The third genus (Conepa tits) has only 32 teeth, one of the upper pre molars being absent, and differs in other re spects from the foregoing. C. mapacito is the
typical skunk of South and Central America and this or a closely related species extends through Mexico into Texas. Except that it does not hibernate its habits are essentially like those described for the common skunk. Con sult Coues,
a common plant (SPathyema fetich!) of the order of Aracett, found in colonies in bogs in eastern North America, and also in Asia. It begins to bloom in winter and the spathes, which are pushed through the mud thus early, are cowl-like, hav ing a twisted point overhanging the orifice; they are fleshy, curiously mottled with purples, greens and yellows, and protect a round spadix in which four-merous perfect flowers are imbedded. These are purplish and are the first pollen-bearers to be visited by bees.