"A fetid animal of the American genus <i>Mephitis, M. mephitica</i>... The animal inhabits all of temperate North America, and continues abundant in the most thickly settled regions. It is about as large as a house-cat, but stouter-bodied, with shorter limbs, and very long bushy tail, habitually erected or turned over the back. The color is black or blackish, conspicuously but to a variable extent set off with pure white- generally as a frontal stripe, a large crown-spot, a pair of broad divergent bands along the side of the back, and white hairs mixed with the black ones of the tail." &mdash;Whitney, 1889

Common Skunk

"A fetid animal of the American genus Mephitis, M. mephitica... The animal inhabits all of temperate…