46 NATTJBAL HISTOBY SKETCHES. 



put the board in on the fur side first, is that the skin may 

 not fasten hard on to the board, which it would do if the 

 board was put in to the fleshy side first ; but I fancy, if 

 the board was well greased, it would not stick. A little 

 wood-ashes rubbed on the fleshy part of the skin, assists 

 much in drying it ; and I have often found wood-ashes, 

 sifted fine, an excellent preservative both for animals and 

 bird skins, when no poison was at hand. 



The Ring-tail Opossum is much smaller, scarcely half 

 the size of the common opossum. The general colour is 

 a plain dark brown, often with a very red tinge ; the 

 breast and belly pure white, the fur short and close, more 

 bristly, and the skins are worth little or nothing for 

 rugs. The tail is long and bare, like a rat's, with a white 

 tip on the end. It is a pretty little animal, and soon 

 becomes tame. They principally frequent thick tea-tree 

 scrub, where they live in small colonies, building a drey 

 like the squirrel at home. You do, however, occasionally 

 at night find them in the gum-trees with the others, but 

 they are nowhere so common as the large opossum. I 

 have Occasionally taken three young ones from the pouch 

 of a ring-tail. Besides these, there are many Australian 

 opossums, or Phalangists, as they are more rightly called. 



We had two species of flying squirrel in our forests, 

 the large black and white, or Ma^ie Squirrel, or Plying 

 Pox, and the little Sugar Squirrel, or " Tooan " of the 

 natives. The magpie squirrel was rare in our district. 

 It is principally found, I think, in the high Stringy-bark 

 ranges, and they abound in the ranges on the Gripps- 

 land road. Strange to say, no opossums are found there. 



