''THEREBY HANGS A TAIL !" 77 



me, again brought down his game without a sound ; it 

 fell at my feet, dropping from branch to branch until it 

 reached the ground. 



I could keep silent 110 longer, for I was at a loss to 

 understand how the colonel brought down his opossums 

 without firing a shot, though going through all the 

 manreuvres of raising his gun, taking aim, and pulling 

 the trigger. 



" Are you a magician, my dear sir ? " said I. 



" 1 1 You are joking ! You don't think so," and with- 

 out another word, he put his gun in my hand. It was an 

 air-gun ! The mystery was solved ; I had before me the 

 key of the enigma. 



Shakespeare has somewhere written the following 

 hemistich, which I have alway believed so since I held 

 in my hand the first opossum killed before my eyes ! 

 refers to this extraordinary mammal : " Thereby hangs 

 a tail ! " And, certainly, the appendage has not its match 

 under the roof of heaven. About fifteen inches in length, 

 black, and without hair, it is of great service to the 

 opossum in climbing trees, and he holds himself sus- 

 pended by it to a branch, while watching for the prey on 

 which he feeds. Nothing is more curious than to see an 

 opossum balancing in this fashion, either for amusement, 

 or during sleep ; as if, to preserve or abandon his 

 position, he has only to say, 'I will,' or, 'this suits me.' 

 .So great is the strength of this natural attachment, that 

 you may kill the animal, without his weighing anchor 

 from the tree to which he hung suspended. Even when 

 the head has been struck off with a discharge of deer-shot, 

 the body will preserve its clinging position until devoured 

 by birds of prey. 



