THE OPOSSUM. 47 



pretend to be as dead as if he had been mortally 

 struck by a bullet. If, by chance, believing him to be 

 dead, you look aside carelessly or throw your game- 

 bag by, the opossum chooses a propitious moment 

 and is beyond your reach when you least expect it. 

 This dodge of the creature has given rise to a 

 common expression in the United States : " playing 

 'possum," or " 'possuming," signifying what we call 

 " shamming dead." I have been told that on getting 

 a tap on the side of the head which would scarcely 

 kill a musquito, he will stretch out his limbs as stiff 

 as if he were a corpse on a dissecting table. In this 

 situation you may pull him and pinch him as you 

 please, but not a muscle will move ; his eyes look as 

 dull as if they were covered with dust (for the 

 opossum has no eyelids) and even if a dog bites him 

 he will not stir. But let him alone for a minute 

 and he will reopen Iiis half-shut eye, and on the first 

 favourable opportunity will take French leave of 

 you in the most rapid manner possible. 



During my sporting trips I never came within 

 gun-shot of an opossum, until one day a planter of 

 Louisiana told me that the plantation around his 

 house was filled with opossums. " Sometimes,^' 

 said he, "when the moon is up, my niggers take a 

 wretched old dog with a capital scent, who guides 

 them to the tree where the opossums have taken 

 refuge; a t-orch of resin is immediately lit, and the 

 blacks begin to cut down the tree on which the 



