268 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



pricked up as the animal watches the danger. This is called 

 " mooning " the opossums. Then with a gun in one's hand one 

 fully realizes for the first time the meaning of the saying 

 " 'possum up a gum-tree." 



The unfortunate beast has the toughness of his skin alone to 

 trust to ; " bang " and down it comes with a heavy thud on the 

 ground, falling head first, tail outstretched, or it clings with 

 claws or tail, or both, to the branches, swaying about wounded, 

 and requires a second shot. It must come down at last, unless 

 indeed the tree be so high that it is out of shot or it manages to 

 nip a small branch with its prehensile tail, in which case it 

 sometimes contrives to hang up even when dead and remain out 

 of reach. 



Nearly all the female opossums which I shot had a single 

 young one in the pouch. The young seemed to be attached 

 with equal frequency to the right or left teat. I shot the animals 

 in the hopes of obtaining young in the earlier stage, but found 

 none such. Amongst stockmen, and even some well-educated 

 people in Australia, there is conviction that the young kangaroo 

 grows out as a sort of bud on the teat of the mother within the 

 pouch. We killed about 20 opossums in a couple of hours on 

 each occasion on which I went out. 



Sometimes we got a Native Cat, Dasyurus viverrinus. It is 

 not easily seen in the trees unless there are dogs to pick out the 

 tree. On one occasion we came upon a small animal allied to 

 the Native Cat, but much rarer, Phascogale %)enicillata. 



Once I visited a great "camp" of fruit-eating bats, "Flying 

 Foxes ' as they are here called (Pteropus poliocephalus). In 

 a dense piece of bush, consisting principally of young trees, the 

 trees were hung all over with these bats, looking like great 

 black fruits. As we approached the bats showed signs of un- 

 easiness, and after the first shot were rather difficult to approach, 

 moving on from before us and pitching in a fresh tree some way 

 ahead. 



The bats uttered a curious cackling cry when disturbed. 

 They were in enormous numbers, and although thousands had 

 been shot not long before by a large party got together for the 

 purpose, their numbers were not perceptibly reduced. They do 



