The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866, page 99 by Various Authors
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defiance and derision; that pretty little imp, the chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den, and defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him before he can get into his hole if you can. You hurl a stone at him, and "No you didn't" comes up from the depth of his retreat.
In February another track appears upon the snow, slender and delicate, about a third larger than that of the gray squirrel, indicating no haste or speed, but, on the contrary, denoting the most imperturbable ease and leisure, the footprints so close together that the trail appears like a chain of curiously carved links. Sir Mephitis chinga, or, in plain English, the skunk, has woke up from his six-weeks nap, and come out into society again. He is a nocturnal traveller, very bold and impudent, coming quite up to the barn and outbuildings, and sometimes taking up his quarters for the season under the hay-mow. There is no such word as hurry in his dictionary, as you may see by his path upon the snow. He has a very sneaking, insinuating way, and goes creeping about the fields and woods, never once in a perceptible degree altering his gait, and, if a fence crosses his course, steers for a break or opening to avoid climbing. He is too indolent even to dig his own hole, but appropriates that of a woodchuck, or hunts out a crevice in the rocks, from which he extends his rambling in all directions, preferring damp, thawy weather. He has very little discretion or cunning, and holds a trap in utter contempt, stepping into it as soon as beside it, relying implicitly for defence against all forms of danger upon the unsavory punishment he is capable of inflicting. He is quite indifferent to both man and beast, and will not hurry himself to get out of the way of either. Walking through the summer fields at twilight, I have come near stepping upon him, and was much the more disturbed of the two. When attacked in the open fields he confounds the plans of his enemies by the unheard-of tactics of exposing his rear rather than his front.