the meat is considered by the natives to be excellent food. It breeds once a year,
and has from six to ten young at a time. A considerable number of animals of the
genus Mephitis, natives of America, resembling each other strongly in form and
size, but differing in the number and variety of their stripes and markings, have
been described by authors as so many distinct species. Baron Cuvier thinks that
the present state of our knowledge of these animals does not warrant us in considering
them otherwise than as varieties of a single species, and of these varieties
he enumerates fifteen*. I have now seen a considerable number of specimens,
killed to the north of the Great Lakes, none of which presented any important
deviation in their markings from the one principally referred to in the description
which follows; and M. Desmarest remarks, that *j the varieties (if they are to be
considered as such, and not as species) are, for the most part, sufficiently uniform
in the same district of country in the disposition of their stripes.” The Hudson
Bay variety, however, comes nearest to the description of the Chinche of Buffon ;
the Viverra Mephitis of Gmelin, which is said to be an inhabitant of Chili. The
Fiskatta, or Skunk, of Kalm, which inhabits Canada, has a white dorsal line in
addition to two lateral onesf.
DESCRIPTION*
The Skunk is low on its legs, with a broad fleshy body, wide forehead, and the general
aspect rather of a wolverene than of a martin ;— eyes small ; ears, short and round. A narrow
white mcesial line runs from the tip of the nose to the occiput, where it dilates into a
broad white mark. It is again narrowed, and continues so until it passes the shoulders, when
it forks, the branches running along the sides, and becoming much broader as they recede
from each other. They approach posteriorly, and unite on the rump, becoming at the same
time narrower. In some few specimens the white stripes do not unite behind, but disappear
on the flanks. The black dorsal space included by the stripes is egg-shaped, the narrow end
of which is towards the shoulders. The sides of the Head and all the under parts are black.
The hair on the body is long. The tail is covered with very long hair, and has generally two
broad longitudinal white stripes above on a black ground. Sometimes the black and white
colours of the tail are irregularly mixed. Its under surface is black. The claws on the forefeet
are very strong and long, being fitted for digging, and very unlike those of the martins.
* O f sem e n s fo s s ile s .
t The earliest account of the Canada Skunk that I have met with, is by Sagard :—“ Les enfans du diable,” dit il,
“ que les Hurons appelle S c a n g a r e s s e , et le commun de Montagnais, Babougi Manitou, ou Ouinesque, est une beste
fort puante de la grandeur d’un chat ou d’une jeune renard, mais elle a la teste un peu moins aiguë, et la peau couverte
d un gros poil rude et enfumé, et sa grosse queue retroussée de mesme, elle se cache en hyver sous la neige, et ne Sort
point, qu’au commencement de la lune du mois de Mars laquelle les Montagnais nomment Ouiniscon pismi, qui signifie
la Lune de la Ouinesque. Cet animal, outre qu’il est de fort mauvaise odeur, est très malicieux, et d’un laid regard.”—,
F. G. Sagard Theodat, H i s t , d u C a n a d a , p. 748.
[ 2 0 . ] 1 .* L u t r a C a n a d e n s i s . (Sabine.) The Canada Otter.
Genus. Lutra. Ray. Cuvier.
Loutre de Canada. Buffon, vol.xiii. p. 326. t. 44.
Common Otter. Pennant, Arct. Zool., vol.i. p. 86.
Land Otter. Warden, United States, vol. i. p. 206.
Lutra Canadensis. Sabine, Franklin's Journ., p. 653.
Lutra Brasiliensis. Harlan, Fauna, p. 72. .
The American Otter. Godman, Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 222.
Neekeek. Cbee Indians. Capucca. Inhabitants of Nöotka.
Buffon describes an Otter from Canada as differing' from the European species
merely in its greater size, and the colour of its fur. Ray had previously enumerated
the Saricorienrie of La Plata, or the Carigueibeju (Sarigoviou) of Brasil, as a
species of his genus luira, distinct from Lutra vulgaris. Pennant, in his History of
Quadrupeds, following Linnæus and Brisson, refers the Brasilian Otter to the Sea
Otter, of the following article ; but, in his Arctic Zoology, he describes the
Brasilian as a peculiar species confined to the warm parts of America ; whilst he
considers the Otter of the northern rivers as identified with the Common Otter of
Europe. Baron Cuvier again unites the Canada and Brasil Otters under the name
of l’outre d'Amérique; but the character ascribed by Margrave to the lutra Brasiliensis,
of its tail and feet being of the same length, will not by any means apply
to the Canada Otter, and I have therefore followed Mr. Sabine, in considering the
subject of this article to be a species peculiar to the northern districts of America.
M. Frederick Cuvier not only separates the Otter of Canada from that of South
America, but also describes a distinct species inhabiting an intermediate district
(Lutra lataxina.)*
The Canada Otter resembles the European species in its habits and food. In
the winter season, it frequents rapids and falls, to have the advantage of open water ;
and when its usual haunts are frozen over, it will travel to a great distance through
the snow, in search of a rapid that has resisted the severity of the weather. If
seen, and pursued by hunters on these journies, it will throw itself forward on
its belly, and slide through the snow for several yards, leaving a deep furrow
behind it. This movement is repeated with so much rapidity, that even a swift
* Diet, des S c ien c e s Nat., xxvii.