OPOSSUM HITNTIXG. 259 



Lord presarve me I I tooli liim out of my pocket, and 

 gave him another tap on tlie head that would have kilt 

 an Orangeman at Donnybrook Fair : ' Take that for a 

 finis, you desateful crater,' said I, slinging him upon 

 my back. Well, murther, if he didn't have me by the 

 sate of honor in no time. ' Och, ye 'Morica cat, ye, I'll 

 bate the sivin lives out of ye ! ' and at liim I wlut till 

 the bones of his body cracked, and Jic ivas than kilt. 

 Then catching him by the tail, for fear of accidents, if 

 he didn't turn round and give my thumb a pinch, I'm 

 no Irishman. ' Oflf wid ye ! ' I hallooed with a .'^hout, 

 ' for some ill-mannered ghost of the divil, with a rat's 

 tail : and if I throubles the likes of ye again, may I ride 

 backwards at my own funeral ! ' " 



There is one other striking characteristic about the 

 opossum, which, we presume, Shakspeare had a pro- 

 phetic vision of, when he wrote that celebrated sentence, 

 " Thereby hangs a tail ; " for this important appendage, 

 next to its " playing 'possum," is most extraordinary. 

 This tail is long, black, and destitute of hair, and al- 

 though it will not enable its posses.'^or, like the kangaroo, 

 in the language of the showman, '' to jump fifteen feet 

 upwards and forty downwards," still it is of gnat im- 

 portance in climbing trees, and supporting the animal 

 when watching for its prey. 



B}- this tail the 'possum suspends itself for hours t<» 

 a swinging limb of a tree, either for amusement or for 

 the purpose of sleeping, which la.st ho will do while thus 



