40 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
Besides persimmons and other fruit the opossum eats almost 
everything that may come in its way, not hesitating to enter the 
pigeon loft or chicken house, though the damage thus done is 
not usually of importance. The young opossums when born are 
about half and inch in length, and are at once placed in the 
pouch, where they attach themselves to the teats, and remain 
until more fully developed. When six or eight inches long they 
may often be seen swarming out over the back of their parent, 
their little naked tails twisted around hers, or hanging head 
down with her from some horizontal limb. 
Didelphis virginiana Abbott, Cook’s Geol. of N. J., 1868, p. 
755.—Abbott, A Naturalist’s Rambles, 1885, p. 451.—Rhoads, 
Mam. Pa. and N. J., 1903, p. 8—Beesley, Geol. Cape May Co., 
1857, P. 137. 
Didelphis marsupialis virginiana Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Seneeuila 18071 p>. 2A, 
Order CETACEA. 
Whales and Dolphins. 
These inhabitants of the ocean only occasionally come within 
the limits of the State of New Jersey, and except when cast up 
dead on our coasts there 1s little chance of identifying them with 
certainty. In early colonial days whaling was practiced on our 
coasts, but whales are now rare, and several species of porpoises 
or dolphins are the only Cetaceans of regular occurrence in New 
Jersey waters. These are, however, abundant, especially off 
Cape May, where they may be seen at almost any time, in the 
summer especially, plunging and rising again just beyond the 
breakers ; occasionally, too, they come into the larger bays along 
the coast. The salient characteristics of the several families of 
Cetaceans to which our North Atlantic species belong, are as 
follows: 
a. Size large (30 to 85 feet long), mouth enormous, teeth absent, but the 
upper jaw provided with long strips of whale bone. 
BALANIDA (Whale-bone Whales.) 
