J"'^'] Booth, A Flying Phalanger. 51 



his hiding-places were rarely the same, they were all pretty 

 uniformly good. 



At times we brought him out in the day-time, but he was, 

 naturally, very lethargic, and, though we could trick him into 

 running about a bit to show him off to visitors, he seemed very 

 uncomfortable, and tried to burrow at once into the pockets 

 or folds or sleeves of one's clothes. Nevertheless, at any time 

 he was willing enough to wake up sufficiently to take a lump 

 of offered sugar, and eat it in the same pretty manner as he did 

 cockroaches. Yes, our pet was quite fond of sugar. One day 

 we found in a drawer of envelopes and stamps a clean round hole 

 through the papers to a small bag of boiled lollies. The 

 stationery department made a debit of sixpence after patching 

 up as many of the stamps as could be used. Otherwise, in the 

 day-time he preferred quiet, and would be pleased to curl up 

 in the lap for any length of time while sewing or the like was 

 being done. He used occasionally to lick the hands of people 

 with his long, thin tongue ; with imagination one might construe 

 it into a caress. 



When he was at large, or almost at large, in his wire house, 

 he was only to be caught during dormant hours, his activity 

 in it, even if he ran almost through your hands at times, 

 rendering it impossible when he had once woke up for the 

 night. It was the practice to feed him when in the wire house 

 once a day in the early evening. He would then answer to a 

 call by name with a hiss, and drop on to the shoulder of the 

 one bringing food. This was practically always the same 

 person, and we certainly think that he came in a way to know 

 her. At these feeding times it was curious to watch him 

 drinking, when he did not perch on the shoulder or hand for 

 a square meal. At these times he would suspend himself over 

 the saucer of milk and drink freely, vertically upwards, gravity 

 and its laws notwithstanding. 



For diet, " Pet Peter " liked cockroaches. They were treated 

 as delicate morsels. Chitin was of no use to him ; after he had 

 had five minutes with a member of the Blattidae it all remained 

 — but nothing, quite nothing, else. Every limb was removed, 

 every femur emptied, and the dry dissected pile left in a neat 

 patch where the meal was partaken of. It was most inter- 

 esting to watch him, squirrel-like, holding these creatures in 

 his miniature hands, and performing the dissection with skill 

 and rapidity. He also had a taste for millipedes, and did not 

 always spurn Oniscus. On one occasion a number of milli- 

 pedes had been gathered for him, and he had been fed with a 

 few, the rest being left in the bottom of a glass tumbler to serve 

 for the next meal. " Pet Peter " took the next meal very 

 shortly, inverting himself in the tumbler to take it, and wiped 



