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 bom 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, 

 ]\Iam. Pa. and N. J., 1903, p. 8. — Beesley, Geol. Cape May Co., 

 1857, p. 137. 



Didelphis marsupialis virginiana Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. 

 Sci. Phila., 1897, p. 24. 



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 is 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 ofif 

 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. 



BAL^NiD.^ (Whale-bone Whales.) 



