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Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA; Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909. at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Vol 



Vlli 



JUNE. 



Number 1 



Concerning Opossum. 



BY JOSEPH \V. Lli'Pi:- COTT, PHILADEL- 

 PHIA, PA. 



It is, to be sure, an accepted fact that 

 the opossum, our neighbor of the woods, 

 occasionally likes to eat chicken, in fact 

 loves chicken. This has indeed been re- 

 peatedly proved in my own hen house, 

 so that if I were ever disposed to ques- 

 tion it, I am now convinced to my entire 

 satisfaction. 



But there were several questions 

 which, for the sake of those hens, I used 

 to lie awake at night pondering-, and one 

 was how did the stealth}- fellow manage 

 to take a chicken from the roost and kill 

 it without a noticeable sound coming 

 from it or from the dozens of others 

 roosting all around. 



One night I even experimented bv 

 pretending I was a 'possum and stealthi- 

 ly trying to take a hen by the neck, as 

 the 'possum himself evidently did, and 

 carry it off without waking the neigh- 

 borhood. It was an interesting escap- 

 ade up to the time I succeeded in seizing 

 the hen, then the dust, feathers and 

 squawks convinced me I was all wrong. 

 T tried it again and again, however, and 

 found that some hens didn't seem to 

 mind it : so the trick seemed to depend 

 upon finding a hen that wasn't skittish. 



Perhaps it doesn't mean that the "pos- 

 sum went around patting each chicken 

 to see if it belonged to the scary kind; 

 but I think it may be inferred that the 



Copyright 1915 by The Agassiz Associat: 



old fellow was foxy or lucky enough to 

 look around until he found a setting hen 

 or a slow-witted lazy old biddy that 

 roosted on the ground or otherwise sep- 

 arate from the flock. 



Sometimes the "possum does raise a 

 big rumpus among the chickens, a lot 

 of cackling and squawking and disorder 

 that spoils their peace of mind for days 

 afterwards : but two of the particular 

 raids of this kind that I remember, oc- 

 curred in the depth of the South Jersey 

 pine barrens and two in the Florida sand 

 hill country, both wild places where the 

 "possums were not used to man's wavs — 

 still uneducated. But even there the 

 "possum did not "cut loose'' as a weasel 

 would and kill everything in sight from 

 the rooster down. 



It seemed oossible that ordinary sub- 

 urban chickens, never having a chance 

 to see "possums in daytime, would not 

 know that they were any more danger- 

 ous than the neiglibor's gray cat, and to 

 test their sagacity I trapped in a box 

 one of several "possunis that T knew 

 lived in a certain set of drains. I should 

 exnlain here tliat while I always took 

 the animal census of the woods in track- 

 ing time and knew prettv well where 

 each one lived, I respected the 'possums 

 far too much to molest them ordinarily. 



The one I dropped in the chicken yard 

 was a big fellow. . He seemed to know 

 all about the chicken yard. too. for no 

 sooner had I turned my back than up he 



on, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



