Our hero begins to notice that there is something
wrong, and presently discovers its cause; he, unhappily, has been the
last person in the room to remark that familiar but most abominable
odour, rising like a deadly exhalation from the floor, conquering all
other odours, and every moment becoming more powerful. A drop _has_
touched his shoe after all; and fearing to be found out, and edging
towards the door, he makes his escape, and is speedily riding home
again; knowing full well that his sudden and early departure from the
scene will be quickly discovered and set down to the right cause.
In that not always trustworthy book _The Natural History of Chili,_
Molina tells us how they deal with the animal in the trans-Andine
regions. "When one appears," he says, "some of the company begiu by
caressing it, until an opportunity offers for one of them to seize it by
the tail. In this position the muscles become contracted, the animal is
unable to eject its fluid, and is quickly despatched." One might just as
well talk of caressing a cobra de capello; yet this laughable fiction
finds believers all over South and North America. Professor Baird
gravely introduces it into his great work on the mammalia. I was once
talking about animals in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine
officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encampment, he had asked
the savages how they contrived to kill skunks without making even a life
in the desert intolerable.
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