70 " PLAYING 'POSSUM." 



the liveliest curiosity. I had often heard the animal 

 spoken of ; and many persons had told me of the device 

 to which he resorts when, surprised by the hunter, he 

 finds escape impossible, how he falls to the ground ap- 

 parently lifeless, as if mortally wounded by his pursuer's 

 gun. 



If by chance, thinking him. really dead, you turn aside 

 your gaze, or throw him negligently into your game-bag, he 

 watches for a favourable moment, and glides beyond your 

 reach, just when you are thinking least about him. This 

 stratagem of his has given rise to the popular proverbial 

 phrase in the United States of " playing 'possum," which 

 may be compared with the English " shamming Abra- 

 ham" and the French " faire le mart." It is enough, I 

 have been told, to tap his head so lightly that the tap 

 would not kill a fly, for him immediately to stretch out 

 Ids limbs with all the rigidity of a corpse. In a word, he 

 11 shams Abraham." In this situation you may torture 

 him, cut his skin, almost flay him, and he will not move 

 a single muscle. His eyes grow dull and glazed, as if 

 covered with a film ; for he has no eyelids to protect his 

 organs of sight. You may even throw him to your dogs 

 in the belief he is dead ; but forget him only for a 

 minute, and he opens his half-closed eyes, and when the 

 opportunity appears favourable, turns tail without a word 

 of warning ! 



In the course of my hunting expeditions no opossum 

 had ever come within gunshot. Perhaps, had it not been 

 for my strong curiosity, I should have hesitated before I 

 wasted any powder on such an animal, when informed by 

 a planter of Louisiana, with whom I was spending a few 



