"Skunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exclaimed, angrily. "A thorn of some kind, put there so that when I jumped into my seat my weight would drive it in. And I reckon, too, it would be just like the cowardly sneak to pick out one that had a poison tip! Oh! what a skunk! and how I'd like to see some of the boys at the ranch round him up! But I wonder, now could I find it? I'd like to ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... fetch along with him when taking this big hike, and that was his little camp hatchet. Fritz had begged to be allowed to carry his old Marlin shotgun, under the plea that they might run across some ferocious animal like a wildcat, or a skunk, and would find a good use for the reliable firearm; but the scoutmaster had set ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... his head, "I didn't think it of you—I didn't indeed. A skunk like that! a woman-shooter, and a Frenchman! You didn't use to ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... said Penrose. "A chap who doesn't do his bit at a time like this is just a skunk, that's all; and I made up my mind that I would learn what a private soldier's life was like before I ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... like an abominable blackguard! this he gathered from what she said: he had lied like a mean skunk and betrayed the man who had rendered him an infinitely great service. Of him Clyffurde wouldn't even think! Such despicable, crawling worms did exist on God's earth: he knew that! but he possessed the happy faculty, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... skunk,' he howls; 'our throats is hot as hell, all th' skin's comin' off 'em; Bill Tomson's got his lips that blistered he can't hold his pipe between 'em. What ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Squirrel, Blacky the Crow, Sammy Jay, Ol' Mistah Buzzard, Mistah Mockingbird, and Sticky-toes the Treetoad. From the Green Meadows came Danny Meadow Mouse, Old Mr. Toad, Digger the Badger, Jimmy Skunk, and Striped Chipmunk, who lives near the old stone- wall between the edge of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest. Johnny and Polly Chuck came down from the Old Orchard and Drummer the Woodpecker ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess
... with excellent effect. "I suppose," says he, "you think you are going shares with Harris, I suppose you think you will see to that yourselves; you would naturally not think so flat a rogue could cozen you. But have a care! These half-idiots have a sort of cunning, as the skunk has its stench; and it may be news to you that Harris has taken care of himself already. Yes, for him the treasure is all money in the bargain. You must find it or go starve. But he has been paid beforehand; my brother paid him to destroy me; look at him if you doubt—look at him, grinning and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... skunk opossum And the stylish leopard mink Scamper as you come across 'em, Climb upon the canon's brink, Gambol with the pony musquash, Claimed not for a collar yet— Far away from London's bus-squash And advertisements of tusk-wash ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... to us, do no kind of justice to the humor and invention of the people. Most of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an artificial air, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to it," if we may use a proverbial phrase, left out by Mr. Bartlett. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... purple chiffon. Other stunning costumes were worn by Mrs. Alexander Britton, who was in purple velvet with lace and brilliants; Miss Catherine Britton, scarlet chiffon. Miss Mary Green wore a lovely gown of blue charmeuse and chiffon with bands of skunk. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... bird means spring; the poking through of the skunk-cabbage in low ground, the growing green mist upon the woods. But there is one thing that has more positive spring in it than any of these—more of the stir and throb of awakening, something identified with ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... goes to the trapper to-day for such common skins as red-fox and skunk and muskrat than was ever paid to the fur-hunter for beaver, seal, and sea-otter in the old days. Six million dollars worth of raw furs are sold annually by auction in London, and Canada is the Mother Country's chief feeder. Included in these London sales are some hundred thousand martens, or Hudson ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... extent the hound has robbed him," Jacky answered in a tone of such bitter hatred as to cause her companion to glance uneasily at the passionate young face before him. "I know, only too well. And right thoroughly has Lablache done his work. Say, Bill, do you know that that skunk holds mortgages on our ranch for two hundred thousand dollars? And every bill of it is for poker. For twenty years, right through, he has steadily sucked the old man's blood. Slick? Say a six-year-old steer don't ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... skunk, and is about the size of a cat. It possesses short round ears, black cheeks, and a white stripe extending from the nose to the back. The upper part of the neck and the whole back are white, divided ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... nothin' so fullish," returned Nick. "It's the skunk lyin' doggo behind it that I'm interested in. Broken Feather's thar, sure; and he ain't dead; he ain't even wounded. He's 'bout as much alive an' alert 's ever he was in his nat'ral. But his ammunition's all spent, an' he's jus' waitin' his chance ter quit. He knows I've got th' bead on him. Soon's ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... the Duke is planning to get in on is an hour of tender dalliance. Before the Camelot arrives, necessarily. The cold-blooded little skunk!" She hesitated a moment; when she spoke again, her voice had turned harsh and nasal, wicked amusement sounding through it. "Sort of busy at the moment, sweetheart, but we might find time for a drink or two later on ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... wild cougar alive but twice, and both times by chance. On one occasion one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a skunk in a bull-berry patch; and by our own bungling frightened it away from its unsavory repast without ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... played at love with our Simeon for a whole year. Such a Herod, the skunk! I didn't have a whole spot on me. I always went about in black and blue marks. And it wasn't for any reason at all, but just simply so—he'd go in the morning into a room with me, lock himself in, and start in to torture me. He'd wrench my arms, pinch my breasts, grab my throat ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... drifting out on the ocean," answered the old tar, and then he continued: "You know how they tried to board us—after Carey, Bossermann, that skunk o' a Wingate, an' Ulligan went to 'em. Well, fust we kept 'em off with fireworks and with a shotgun. We didn't have much steam up, but Frank Norton—bless his heart—worked like a beaver, and the boys, Fred and Hans, helped him. I went to steer an' by good luck kept off the rocks an' ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... Enoch. "But to punish him don't turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is. Kill him if you have to. Don't be a filthy ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Massachusetts, and proud Maine, Planting the trees that would march and train On, in his name to the great Pacific, Like Birnam wood to Dunsinane, Johnny Appleseed swept on, Every shackle gone, Loving every sloshy brake, Loving every skunk and snake, Loving every leathery weed, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Master and ruler of the unicorn-ramping forest, The tiger-mewing forest, The rooster-trumpeting, boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest, The spirit-haunted, fairy-enchanted forest, Stupendous and endless, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... "That old skunk rather turned you down, I guess," remarked Ike, after a long silence; "that old Macfarren, I mean," in answer to Shock's ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... Castlewood, no more he can! He said 'twas you that wanted for spirit, cousin, and angered me by telling me that you was always abusing of me. But I forgive you, George, that I do! And when I tell you that it was he was afraid—the mean skunk!—and actually sent for them constables to prevent the match between you and he, you won't wonder I wouldn't vally a feller like that—no, not that much!" and her ladyship snapped her little fingers. "I say, noblesse oblige, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... So he had been right. That young skunk had paid a hundred dollars for a watch for Anna. To Rudolph it meant but ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... no more closely related to Paddy than he is to the rest of you. He is a true Rat. He is called Muskrat because he carries with him a scent called musk. It is not an unpleasant scent, like that of Jimmy Skunk, and isn't used for the same purpose. Jerry uses his to tell his friends where he has been. He leaves a little of it at the places he visits. Some folks call him Musquash, but Muskrat ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... of the Cumberland to the yellow flood of the Ohio he knew that land, and he loved every acre of it, whether blue-grass, bear-grass, peavine, or pennyroyal, and he knew its history from Daniel Boone to the little Boones who still trapped skunk, mink, and muskrat, and shot squirrels in the hills with the same old-fashioned rifle, and he loved its people—his people—whether they wore silk and slippers, homespun and brogans, patent leathers and broadcloth, or cowhide boots and jeans. And now serious troubles were threatening them. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... "The skunk I called my daddy," Jim went on thoughtfully, "took me to New York. He said that my mother deserted me when I was a kid. I believed him at first. But when he beat me and kicked me into the streets, I knew he was a liar. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... than the buffalo. As yet his most destructive foe in this region is perhaps the hawk, although he is raided from the timber by the opossum, raccoon, and three species of cat, while on the open his nest has marked attractions for the skunk and probably the coyote. He has survived these dumb discouragers so long, and the heat at his proper season is so trying to his human foe, that he may long find a refuge here and proudly lead forth his young Texans for scores of Augusts. He and his family will often quietly walk off while the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... us deeply and painfully was the skunk. They were fearless little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. When the wind brought ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... He never kills for the sake of killing, but lives peaceably, so far as he can, with all creatures. And he stops fishing when he has caught his dinner. He is also most cleanly in his habits, with no suggestion whatever of the evil odors that cling to the mink and defile the whole neighborhood of a skunk. One cannot help wondering whether just going fishing has not wrought all this wonder in Keeonekh's disposition. If so, 't is a pity that all his tribe do not ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... of eleven were great chums; they chased wild bees together, putting honey on the stone wall, getting a line on the bees; shelled beechnuts and cracked butternuts for the chipmunks; caught skunks in a trap, just to demonstrate that a skunk can be carried by the tail with impunity, if you only do it right (and, though succeeding one day, got the worst of the bargain the next); and waged war early and late on the flabby woodchucks which one could see almost any hour in the day undulating across the fields. We called these ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Opinion in their grasp. There is something about a sailor that conduces to sentiment in every passer-by, and Jay, who was fleeing from that very feeling, looked hastily at some one else. Her seeking eye lit on a lady who had a complete skunk climbing up the nape of her neck, and a hat of the approximate size of a five-shilling piece worn over her right eyebrow. She looked such a fool that Jay concluded that the look was intentional, and indeed I suppose it must be, for the worst insult you can offer to ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... a wide berth," suggested Snap, "unless you want to put a whole perfumery shop to shame." And they did give the animal a wide berth, for it was a skunk, and one "ready for business," as ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... mischief; I can see it in his eye!" thought Jack. "Well," continued he mentally, "let him do his worst; I mean mischief too, and we will see who is the better player at the game. But I must keep cool if I am to come out on top; and, who knows? the skunk may say something which will afford ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... a bullfrog and a skunk went to a circus, the duck and the bullfrog got in, why didn't the skunk ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... — N. fetor^; bad &c adj.. smell, bad odor; stench, stink; foul odor, malodor; empyreuma^; mustiness &c adj.; rancidity; foulness &c (uncleanness) 653. stoat, polecat, skunk; assafoetida^; fungus, garlic; stinkpot; fitchet^, fitchew^, fourmart^, peccary. acridity &c 401.1. V. have a bad smell &c n.; smell; stink, stink in the nostrils, stink like a polecat; smell strong &c adj., smell offensively. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the darkness and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk and the coyote.[1] ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... than this, they enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," and no man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... "That lyin' skunk's so crooked he cain't lay straight in bed, Gregg. I was honin' somethin' powerful to horn in on that little shindy—but I reckon Shane's bunged him up conside'ble," he drawled with immense satisfaction, as he leaned over and felt the trader's arm. "'Pears like ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... "You damned skunk!" he cried, "you've sold us out after promisin' not to, that's what you've done! But I'll get back at you if it costs me ten years in ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... always keen on Ormsby. When she's married—and settled down—then you must tell her the truth—that I didn't alter those checks, that I wasn't such a cheat, nor a coward either. Don't let her think I died a skunk who wanted to be shot to avoid the consequences of a forgery. Yes, you'll have to tell her that, father—you'll ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... git the truth—git the whole of it. Git what you ain't lookin' for. There ain't no liars up in our mountains 'cept them skunks in Gov'ment pay you fellers send up to us, and things like Hank Halliday. He's wuss nor any skunk. A skunk's a varmint that don't stink tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks all the time. He's one o' them fellers that goes 'round with books in their pockets with picters in 'em that no girl oughter see and no white man oughter read. He gits 'em down to Louisville. There ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... animals, as with the notorious skunk of America, the overwhelming odour which they emit appears to serve exclusively as a defence. With shrew-mice (Sorex) both sexes possess abdominal scent-glands, and there can be little doubt, from the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... was guarded by Tcápani (the Bat) and an animal called Çantsò (of crepuscular or nocturnal habits). Here dwelt many young men and young women who were skunks (golÃji), and they taught the Navajo wanderer how to make and how to bury the kethà wns which are sacred to the skunk. ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... he said gently, "you're talkin' foolish. An' you know it. What I did was only right by you. I'd 'a' been a skunk to have acted different. I lit on the trail o' your folk, don't matter how, an' I had to see you righted, come what might. Now it's done. An' I don't see wher' the hangin' comes in. Guess you ken come an' see Ma later, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... anything on top of the earth he absolutely despises it's a gossiping man. He says a gossiping woman is a creation of God—must be, there's so many of 'em; but a gossiping man—he can't find any word in the dictionary mean enough for that sort of a low-down skunk." ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... began to side-step and limp. "Count me out on that," said he. "The old skunk treated me just about the same way. I don't blame you; a feller sure has a right to have his postmaster make a bluff at shuffling the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... utter would be taken down and used in evidence against him, he continued to say with a kind of delight that he had done his work faithfully, and that he could have done it quite successfully if he had not been mated with a coward and a skunk, and that he didn't much care now what came of him, since he didn't suppose they would let him loose and give him one hour's chance again, and see if he couldn't work the thing somewhat better than he had ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Making a ghastly rosary The night mumbles over And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper... Patrolling arcs Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line Stalk them as they pass, Silent as though accouched of the darkness, And the wind noses among them, Like a skunk That roots ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... many twins throughout the country. I quote it for its value as a specimen of that sort of journalistic and political utterance amongst us, which is as seriously embarrassed by facts as a skunk by its tail. Had its author said: "The Declaration of Independence was signed by Christopher Columbus on Washington's birthday during the siege of Vicksburg in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and Judas Iscariot," his statement would have been ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... because his name was Andrew Jackson, or the Hero, or Old Hickory. And when he left those principles which induced me to support him, I considered myself justified in opposing him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I don't like it; it taints every action of life; it is like a skunk getting into a house—long after he has cleared out, you smell him in every room and closet, from the cellar to ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... Chippewas at Shakopee, and proceeded to celebrate the event with a scalp dance. This dance and the whoops of the Indians attracted spectators from Traverse and St. Peter; and with boyish curiosity, I was as near as possible to the dancers. Suddenly I spied one brave, dancing about, with a skunk skin tied to his heel and trailing on the ground behind him. Obeying a mischievous impulse, I jumped upon the trailing skin, and stopped the wild dancer. The savage wheeled, quickly raised his tomahawk, and was ready to strike; but when he saw ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... his mouth were grim. "Oh, all right," he said, after a moment, "I promise;—for I think you are right, Crowther. I think too that I should probably have to tell her—whether I wanted to or not. She's that sort—the sort that none but a skunk could deceive. But—" his voice altered suddenly; he turned brooding eyes upon the sleeping sea—"I wonder if she will forgive ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... he steal. Well, his time bein' no airthly use, dey gib him six month pensiontary; and niggar, who can airn a dollar or may be 100 cents a day, only one month. I spise a poor white man as I do a skunk. Dey is a cuss to de country; and it's berry hard for you and me to pay rates to support 'em: our rates last year was bominable. Let us pass dis law, Missus, and fowl stealin' is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... anxiously awaiting the result. After some time she heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the woodpile,' said the old man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.'" The Senators retired, and nothing more was heard from them ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... knowledge,—the science of being able to talk about the titled people. So my furrier (whose name was Ramsack), having to make robes for peers, and cloaks for their wives and otherwise, knew the great folk, sham or real, as well as he knew a fox or skunk from ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Mr. Blasted Heyst, the time isn't yet. My head's cooler just now than yours. Let's go in again. Why, we are exposed here. Suppose he took it into his head to let off a gun on us! He's an unaccountable, 'yporcritical skunk." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... bars of the river are composed principally of gravel; the river low grounds are narrow, and afford scarcely any timber; nor is there much pine on the hills. The buffalo have now become scarce; we saw a polecat (skunk) this evening, which was the first for several days; in the course of the day we also saw several herds of the bighorned animals among the steep cliffs on the north, and killed several ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... nest, you blinking cuckoo, you, or I'll cut your silly insides out! Come out of it—you pock-marked rat! Stealing another man's 'ome away from 'im! Come out and look me in the face, you squinting son of a Skunk!..." ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... you! That's the way it's always gone: first the liar tells his lie, and some of the fools believe it, and proselyte the other fools, and when there are enough of them, their faith begins to work on the liar's own unbelief, till he takes his lie for the truth. Was that the way, you miserable skunk?" ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... things in my life, but I can't do this! Lydia, you go home and tell your father I'll renew that note, but he's got to pay the interest and ten per cent. of the principal, every year till he's paid it up. Here, I'll write it down. And tell him that I'm not doing it for him or for that skunk of a Levine, but I'm doing it for you. Here, I'll write that ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the how, that's the very thing itself. Put it to the skunk, let him deny that if he can—let him deny that his name is Jared Bunce—that he hails from Connecticut—that he is a shark, and a pirate, and a pestilence. Let him deny that he is a cheat—that he goes about with his notions ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... that being Mr. John Coulter," chuckled he. "And, oh, the things I said to him! I tremble to recall them. I told him Corcoran was a low-down skunk, I know that. And I gushed on a lot about Hal and Louise. I only wish I could remember what I did say. Jove! He must have split his ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... hard to think of some good way to catch Freddie asleep, when who should come strolling along but Henry Skunk! Frisky always supposed that he was called "Henry" because he was so fond of hens—for he visited Farmer Green's hen-house oftener than any other of the forest-people—but whether that was why he was so named I should really ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... day without a poorly spelled, spattered, daubed and profane valentine threatening his life. The last time I saw him he showed me a few of them. They generally referred to him as a blankety blank "skunk," and a "hound of hell." He said he hoped I wound pardon him for the apparent egotism, but he felt as though the Tribune was attracting attention almost everyday. Some of these little billet-doux invited him to call at a trysting place on Tribune avenue and get his alleged brains scattered ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... I guessed it, this story really began at Skunk's Misery. But Skunk's Misery was the last thing in my head, though I had just come from ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... Bundercombe declared. "A withered old skunk, if ever there was one! You want a live man to see you through this, Paul. You let me go down and sound Harrison this afternoon. No reason that I can see why we shouldn't use this fellow's address, too, if we can make ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... least partially familiar with the plant and bird world, travel holds so much more of interest and enthusiasm than it does to one who cannot tell mint from skunk cabbage, or a sparrow from a thrush. Having made acquaintance with the flowers and the birds, every journey will take on an added interest because always there are unnumbered scenes to attract our attention; which ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Barred Owl. It is one of the strongest of the family, and captures rabbits, grouse and poultry, and is very often found to have been feeding upon, or to have been in the immediate vicinity of a skunk. They nest very early, January, February and March. Deserted Hawk's or Crow's nests are very frequently used by this bird, if they are located in dense woods. They also sometimes nest in hollow cavities in large trees. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... he to himself, as he started to his feet; "the skunk is coming this way. Good! he has the advantage of me in being mounted; but I have a rifle that I dare say will make up for the difference—enfant de ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... another to mark its site. I judge that the bobolink escapes the dangers to which I have adverted as few or no other birds do. Unless the mowers come along at an earlier date than she has anticipated, that is, before July lst, or a skunk goes nosing through the grass, which is unusual, she is as safe as bird well can be in the great open of nature. She selects the most monotonous and uniform place she can find amid the daisies or the timothy and clover, and places her simple structure upon the ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... skunk down there with a bad eye an' a gun that jumps out of its leather like it had a mind of its own. He picked me for fifty bucks by nailing a dollar I tossed up at twenty yards. Then he gets a hundred because I couldn't ride this hoss of his. Which he's made a plumb fool of me, Dan. Now I was tellin' ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... them well on with their task, Joses being seated upon a fragment of rock contentedly smoking his cigarette and giving instructions, he being an adept at such matters, having stripped off hundreds if not thousands of hides in his day, from bison cattle and bear down to panther and skunk. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... while I tell you somethin'. The day 'Drag' Harlan got in Lamo he brought news that Lane Morgan had been killed out in the desert. I heard the boys sayin' you had a hand in it. But I thought that was just talk. I didn't believe you was that kind of a skunk. I waited. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... their faces. Prairie chickens and quail, startled and confused by the double line of flame, whirred above their heads, uncertain how to seek safety. A terrified jack rabbit leaped up almost at Sherm's feet. Rabbits, ground squirrels, one lone skunk, and even an occasional coyote, darted past them. Back at the road where they had begun, the head fire was already meeting their line of back fire and dying down in sullen smoke. Still, that hundred yards ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... terrified the crafty Norman. He suddenly made up his mind and held out his hand, as after buying a cow, saying: "Put it there, M'sieu le Baron; it is a bargain. Whoever draws back is a skunk!" ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in winter, when the lodge was full of old and young people, and through lack of attention the fire died down, some older person would call out, "Look out for the skunk!" which would be a warning to the boys to put some sticks on the fire. If this was not done at once, the man who had called out might throw a stick of wood across the lodge into the group of children, hitting and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... on that skunk," he had said, the malodorous epithet being his designation for Louis Laplante, "If you lay hands on that skunk, don't be a simpleton. Skin him, Sir, by the Lord, skin him! Let him play the ostrich act! Keep your ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty. "True as steel, every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris. What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I've a mind to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating up and see what ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mice I laid down large doors over some hay or long grass and they gathered underneath and then I lifted the doors up every day and with a stick I smashed hundreds of them. I have posted a notice to leave the skunk and mink alone; I don't want anybody ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... and hepatica lie bedded not alone in the fallen leaves of the forest but amid their own enduring foliage. The skunk cabbage raises his hooded head first in sheltered hollows. The marsh marigold lies in the protection of bog tussocks and stream banks. The first bloodroot is always found at the foot of some natural ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... If it ain' good, it ain' good. W'at you care you call um cat—dog—pig? Plenty t'ing good to eat w'en you fin' dat out. De owl, she good meat. De musquash, w'at you call de mushrat—dat don' hurt de meat 'cause you call um rat! De skunk mak' de fine meat, an' ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... "There's a skunk hereabouts," said Union Mills, who was supposed to be gifted with aristocratically sensitive nostrils, "within ten miles of this place; like as not crossing the Ridge. It's always my luck to happen out just at such ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Georgy," said his uncle; "but it was lucky it did not squirt into your eyes, or you might have been blinded for life. That was a skunk, and very likely thinking of paying a visit to the chickens when you disturbed it. It makes great havoc in a hen-roost, Annie; and I would advise you to get Tom ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him. How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper. There was no trace of love between us any longer. I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Boyle had needed anything more to stir him to the fighting point, that one sentence admirably supplied the lack. "Yuh low-down skunk!" he cried, and struck him full upon the insulting, smiling mouth. "If I was as rotten-minded as you are, I'd go drown myself in the stalest alkali hole I could find. I dunno why I'm dirtying my hands on yuh—yuh ain't fit ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... labor" was also desirous of ridding the town of the hated I.W.W. Hall. A switchman named Henry, a member of the Railway Brotherhood, was nominated. When he indignantly declined, Hubbard, red in the face with rage, called him a "damned skunk." ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... Liff Loop," broke in Anderson sternly. "Don't say anything more. All I got to say is that it wasn't you your wife insulted when she called you a skunk. Good ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... had to be so economical! But he refused, patiently. To be patient, Maurice did not need, now, to remind himself of the mountain and her faithfulness to him; he had only to remind himself of the yellow-brick apartment house, and his faithlessness to her. "I've got to be kind, or I'd be a skunk," he used to think. So he was very kind. He did not burst out at her with irritated mortification when she telephoned to the office to know if "Mr. Curtis's headache was better";—he had suffered so much that he had gone beyond the self-consciousness ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... indeed gone so well and the week that followed was so peaceful that Douglas did not sleep in the chapel on the following Saturday night. When Mr. Fowler unlocked the door on Sunday morning, a skunk fled from under the pulpit out into the aspens, and there was no service ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... should be said here for skunks and moles. A great deal of the skunk diet is insect life. The same is true of the mole whose diet probably consists of 75% insects, mostly in their larval state. This is an important feature of mole and skunk as they dig these insects out before they mature into winged ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... thrown down]. Oh, did you hear what he called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! Thats what I'd do with ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... are several different ways of skinning animals: one is called "case skinning" and another is called "split skinning." To case skin an animal such as ermine, fox, fisher, lynx, marten, mink, otter, muskrat, rabbit, or skunk, the skin is cut down the inner side of each hind leg until the two cuts meet just under the tail, and then the pelt is peeled off by turning it inside out. To split skin an animal such as wood-buffalo, moose, wapiti, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... betraying astonishment at his appearance; but he was greeted kindly and invited to the camp. Nearing the fire through the woods, his nostrils were assailed by a horrible smell which one of the men explained by saying he had just shot a skunk. There were eighteen in the party, comfortably fixed with two good sized tents and an abundance of buffalo robes. After he had removed his suit the cook prepared an excellent meal and urged him to eat heartily which ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... wood-pile,' said the old man, 'with the shotgun pointed towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... lot of dust, maybe—but we won't do anything like what he'd do, in our places. He knows the Old Man and Chip are gone, and he knows we've just naturally got to sit back and swallow our tongues because we haven't any authority. Mamma! It comes pretty tough, when a low-down skunk like that just banks on your doing the square thing. He wouldn't do it, but he knows we will; and so he takes advantage of white men and gets the best of 'em. And if we should happen to break out and do something, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... McBane. Billings was the white Republican mayor. "Is that skunk to be allowed to ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... skunk, dark in color and with a bushy tail. As it moved along in the grass it looked somewhat like a large black cat. Excited, Ham Spink ran close, took hasty ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... only one species out of 3,000,000 should develop into man, that it certainly was not the case. All had the same start, many had similar environments. Yet witness the motly products of evolution: Man, ape, elephant, skunk, scorpion, lizard, lark, toad, lobster, louse, flea, amoeba, hookworm, and countless microscopic animals; also, the palm, lily, melon, maize, mushroom, thistle, cactus, microscopic bacilli, etc. All developed from one germ, all in some way related. Mark well the difference in size between the ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... of those and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Hear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer," replied Whitefoot. "It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always some one hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... indeterminate interval the four left the still, taking a bottle with them so that it might be had without delay, should they meet a snake or a hydrophobia skunk or some other venomous reptile. It was Casey who made the suggestion, and he became involved in difficulties when he attempted the word venomous. Once started Casey was determined to pronounce the word and pronounce ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... going over to relieve that old skunk," Reid announced, "not without orders from Sullivan. If he gets off you'll have to relieve him yourself. I don't want that Hall guy to get it into his nut that ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... body!" ejaculated a woman. "I hope they don't forgit to lock them cages up! Folks git awful careless when they do a thing every day! I forgot to shet up the hins last week, an' that was the night the skunk got in." ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... or by asking it on what day of the month came Christmas. The worse of the Tremblays encountered this creature and it filled him with dismay. When he returned his neighbors observed an odor—not of sanctity—on his garments, and their view of the matter was that he had met a skunk. The graceless man felt convinced, however, that he had received a devil's baptism from the Nain Rouge, and St. Patrick had no stancher allies than ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... chief one—Fact is, Josh, I've acted like a howling skunk about you with her. I ran you down to her; tried to ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... up his hand impatiently. "You see I had to find an answer. I couldn't think of being a skunk—running away—and I couldn't stay. I wasn't intended to stay. Some men are intended to work and take care of children and serve women perhaps but others have to keep trying for a vague something all their lives—like me trying for a tone on a violin. If they don't get ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... shouldn't wonder if some of them hadn't got me in tow. But, I ain't going to give it up yet. I don't forget the old chap's knocking me down in the dark behind my back, as though I'd been no better than a woodchuck or a skunk." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... type whose Society column consists of such items as "Pawnee Jim Williams was to town yesterday with a bunch of other cheap skates. We take this opportunity of once more informing Jim that he is a liar and a skunk," and whose editor works with a revolver on his desk and another in his hip-pocket. Graduating from this, he had proceeded to a reporter's post on a daily paper in a Kentucky town, where there were blood feuds and ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... parson, that part of it had never struck me. I ain't bright and never was. But I ain't no skunk. I give that woman some of her own money back and that week I sold out at a loss and slunk around some more. I couldn't go back to my own work. I had a grudge against it, someway. By and by the money was all gone and an old pal of mine offered to set me up in business out here, away from the city ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... have the Panther and Black Bear in the wooded portions of the State, though rare; the Lynx, the Gray and Black Wolf, and the Prairie Wolf; the Skunk, the Badger, the Woodchuck, the Raccoon, and, in the southern part of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... "You skunk!" said Polly. And Mamise laughed. Everything made her laugh now; she was so happy that she began ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... material as therein described, covering with moss, chaff, leaves or some other light substance. The clog should be fully twice as heavy as that used for the fox. Some trappers rub the traps with "brake leaves," sweet fern, or even skunk's cabbage. Gloves should always be worn in handling the traps, and all tracks should be obliterated as much as if a fox were the object sought to ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... sennyritas hez the littlest kind o' feet. When any feller finds her tracks, he'll fire, an' then we'll rally on him. I wish them other fellers, instid of goin' off half-cocked, hed tracked Codago, the low-lived skunk. To think of him runnin' away from wife, an' young one, too! ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... This is no place for me," whispered Peter and started for the dear Old Briar-patch. He was in such a hurry to get there that on his way across the Green Meadows he almost ran into Jimmy Skunk ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... that for a treetur an' a cowart! Strip the skunk! He's got sumthin' steely under his shirt; I heerd the chink ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... a popular saying in Mazowsze: "As the skunk smells, so the Krzyzak lies." The prince waved his hand to such thanks, and after they went out he said that by the intervention of the Knights of the Cross, one would go to heaven as ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... scoffed at that pompous question-begging word "Evolution," having, so to speak, found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a various and splendid disorder of forces that ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... were, bales of them—seal, sea-otter, beaver, skunk, marten, and a few bear, the sight of all raising up in our hearts endless ideas of sport and adventure possibly never ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... grew great store of high-bush blackberries. Along the roadside were bayberry-bushes, hung all over with bright red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. Then there were swamps set thick with dingy alders, where the three-leaved arum and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent, shelving down into black boggy pools here and there at the edge of which the green frog, stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had taken the six-foot spring that plumped ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... young devil had the gall," he muttered. "Acting like he'd been bit by a hydrophoby skunk. Nothing meaner 'n a mad wolf. I'd 'a' give him Carmena quick enough.... Learn her not to pass up a white man agin when she had her chance. But the young gal—— Blast Cochise. When I ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... early this evening a'hangin' around these here premises and I ups and chases him twicet, but the skunk outrun me," the newcomer gurgled, as he excitedly swung a policeman's billy the ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... but not tipping dice. Smythe is a skunk. He's no Twenty-fifth, or he wouldn't have any need to go crooked. He saw a chance to make a killing. He suggested it to Rose, who fell for it and went along. Rose decided to steal Simonetti's half of the business ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the next morning contained a skunk, and we moved on as quickly as possible, without attempting to secure the thong, of which we had several. We gathered some puffballs to soak for breakfast and in a clearing I found some blackberry bushes. We were very ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tief!" said the virtuous Sunday. "I'll gib you what for; you shall hab what Paddy gib the drum, you 'fernal black skunk; I show yar what John up the orchard is, you—you ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Well, Heman, I ain't as well up in tricks as you claim to be, nor my stockin' isn't as well padded as yours, maybe. But while there's a ten-cent piece left in the toe of it I'll fight you and the skunk whose 'rights' you seem to have taken such a shine to. And, after that, while there's a lawyer that 'll trust me. And, meantime, that little girl stays right here, and you touch her if you dare, any of you! ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mug, and saw a turbid, yellow concoction, not at all attractive to the eye; he smelt of it, and was partly of opinion that Aunt Keziah had mixed a certain unfragrant vegetable, called skunk-cabbage, with the other ingredients of her witch-drink. He tasted it; not a mere sip, but a good, genuine gulp, being determined to have real proof of what the stuff was in all respects. The draught seemed at first to burn in his mouth, unaccustomed to any drink but water, and to go scorching all ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... called a skunk, and a cur, and a coward, and by most other names that are bad and contemptuous. But the dingo at bay is as brave as a weasel; and no lion in all Africa is braver than a weasel at bay. Finn had brought himself ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... things 'bout Injuns but, like young brats, they take natural to deviltry. Ye may have my hide fer sole luther if ye ketch me in an Injun village with a load o' fire-water. Some Injuns is smart, an' gol ding their pictur's! they kin talk like a cat-bird. A skunk has a han'some coat an' acts as cute as a kitten but all the same, which thar ain't no doubt o' it, his friendship ain't wuth a dam. It's a kind o' p'ison. Injuns is like skunks, if ye trust 'em they'll sp'ile ye. They eat like beasts an' think like beasts, an' live like beasts, an' talk ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... commended to players of golf, who are inclined to be "worldly." The episode of Oconio at the best is too long to quote; it, too, has its lesson! One reads Mr. Abbott's defence of the skunk cabbage, for it harbours at ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... See those red fibers? Why shouldn't such roots, and nuts like those great, burnished horse-chestnuts there—yes, and cattails, and poke-berries, and skunk cabbages, give forth an entirely new outfit of fruits and vegetables?" Berber smiled his young ruminating smile; then, with inevitable courtesy, he seemed to remember that he had not answered her question. "I am not surprised that you and Mr. Strang thought such things about me. I ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... disliked you. But there at the Front and in the Forest you were brave and extraordinarily competent. You treated Trenchard abominably, of course—but he rather asked for it in some ways. Here you've been nothing but the meanest skunk and sneak. You've set out deliberately to poison the lives of some of the best-hearted and most helpless people on this earth.... You deserve hanging, if any murderer ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... I saw a smile growing slowly at the corners of his lips. I knew that smile. Jerry wore it the day Skookums disobeyed orders and had the encounter with the skunk. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... a man a maniac," Prale mused. "And that Shepley man! He was all right when we parted on the ship. Somebody said something to him about me after he landed. He treated me as if I had been a skunk." ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... he ejaculated, after I had related to him in detail the incidents connected with the seizure of the Zenobia by her crew, under the leadership of Bainbridge; "if that don't beat everything! And you say that the skunk means to set up in business as a pirate? But is this here barque of yourn armed? Do she mount any guns? Because, if she don't, how do that crowd of toughs reckon they're goin' to hold up and ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's true that these strangers in our country are going to be abused because they're poor,—what else could I do with my money and not feel like a skunk? ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... Sonora; but at the door he called back to the greaser: "Come on, you oily, garlic-eatin', red-peppery, dog-trottin', sunbaked son of a skunk!" ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... tells him that Jesus Christ could not have "gone up" from two places at once; common sense tells him that turning devils out of men into pigs is a fable not half as good as the poorest of AEsop's; common sense tells him that nobody but a skunk would consent to be saved from the penalty of his own misdeeds by the sufferings of an innocent man; common sense tells him that while men object to having their pockets picked and their throats cut, they want no divine command against theft and murder; common sense tells him ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... black. Then Naganschitn, the Badger, was sent to see if the land was good, but just as soon as he had crawled through he sank in the black mud and could go no farther, so Little Whirlwind was despatched to succor him. To this day Badger's legs are black. Next Keldinshe{COMBINING BREVE}n, the Skunk, was sent, because he was light in weight; but even he sank in the mud and blackened his legs. Then the people sent Cha, the Beaver, who travelled about for a long time, and finding all the water running away in streams, built dams and thus formed many lakes. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis |
