232 VICTORIA. NEW SOUTH WALES. 



it curiously represented the Blue Mountain configuration on a 

 small scale. It is only necessary to plough a furrow anywhere 

 in the soil about Camden to lead to the formation in a short 

 time of such a chasm. 



I twice enjoyed the kind hospitality of Sir William McArthur, 

 at Camden Park. The park is 10,000 acres in extent. Here 

 I went out on several occasions to shoot opossums by moon- 

 light. The opossums are out feeding on the trees at night or 

 are out on the ground, and rush up the trees on the approach 

 of danger. They are very difficult to see by one not accustomed 

 to the work, but those who habitually shoot them discover 

 them with astonishing ease. 



In order to find the animals, the sportsman places himself so 

 as to get successive portions of the tree between his eye and the 

 moonlight, and thus searching the tree over, at last he catches 

 sight of a dark mass crouching on a branch, and usually sees 

 the ears pricked up as the animal watches the danger. This 

 C5'v»^ wW?J \ ^^ called "mooning" the opossums. Then with a gun in one's 

 ^., , ^^^. .. hand one fully realises for the first time the meaning of the 



■^"^■'' 1^ saying " 'possum up a gum-tree." 



'"'^^'^ ''{y ^^^ i'he unfortunate beast has the toughness of its skin alone to 



,ij5-->»_ <X^Jt^xrTV<«-«. trust to ; " bang ! " and down it comes with a heavy thud on the 



.,««.— ^<- ground, falling head first, tail outstretched, or it clings with 



.-v«.--- V..L s- claws or tail, or both, to the branches, swaying about wounded, 



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



a-c^yj^y^^^*"^^--^ unless indeed the tree be so high that it is out of shot, or it 



gi^^^^-n.'^x^-*- manages to nip a small branch with its prehensile tail, in 



-^ g, '■ ^'' ' 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 



, 1^ ^^Y' young one in the pouch. The young seemed to be attached 

 riL ^^ytk^i^^'V^ • ^'^^ equal frequency to the right or left teat. I shot the 

 Q I 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, Dasyiirus viverrimts. It is 

 no" 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 penicillata. 

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

 Fjxes " as they are here called {Fteropus poliocephalus). In 

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

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



