42 KATURAL HISTORY SKETCHES. 



dogs. The skins are worth about 5s. per dozen : they 

 are in best fur during the winter ; in the summer the 

 hair is all scratched off the rump, I could never account 

 for the cause rightly. It is a curious fact, that the hair 

 easily comes off a fresh-killed opossum ; and when shoot- 

 ing for the skins, one must be very careful not to pull the 

 opossum about till cold. I have seen the fur stripped off 

 the whole body, just like a scalded pig. I fancy that 

 the opossums come down from the ranges much in the 

 autumn in a kind of migration to the low country, at 

 least I often used to find them about the end of autumn 

 thick in some places a few miles from the ranges, where, 

 in the summer, they were very rare. They have a loud 

 call, something between a scream and a chatter, which 

 we used to hear much in the forests, especially during 

 the pairing season. The opossum has usually but one 

 young one at a birth ; I have, however, more than once 

 taken two from the pouch. The young one, at first, is 

 red-coloured. The females breed but once in the year. 



Every bush-dog has, to use a colonial phrase, " a 

 rank down" on the opossum, and will hunt them up or 

 find them in the trees at night, and stand barking under 

 them till the shooter comes up. The opossum then acts 

 very foolishly, for it will often only just run up out of 

 reach of the dog, at which it will sit swearing, after the 

 manner of a cat, without at all noticing the shooter 

 below. A still night, after rain, with a moon just over 

 the tree-tops, is the right night for 'possum-shooting. 

 They are, however, very irregular in coming out, for in 



