THE PECULIAR 'POSSUM 



95 





tender blossoming of fat fat cropped in the bud 

 taken in the shoot in the first innocence 

 For no matter how old your roast 'possum, he is as 

 tender as the tenderest roast pig. And that, of 

 course, is peculiar. 



But live 'possum is more peculiar than roast 'pos- 

 sum. It is peculiar, for instance, that almost all of 

 the 'possum's relations, except his immediate family, 

 dwell apart in Australia, in Australasia, for mar- 

 supials are found also in Tasmania, New Guinea, 

 and the Moluccas which islands the marsupials 

 seem to have had given them for their own when 

 the world was made. There, at least, most of them 

 live and have lived for ages, except the 'pos- 

 sums. These latter, strangely enough, live in South 

 and North America, and nowhere else. The peculiar, 

 puzzling thing about them is : how they, and they 

 only of the marsupials, got away from Australia 

 across the sea to America. Did a family of them get 

 set adrift on a log and float across ? Or was there 

 once, as geologists tell us, a long string of islands 

 close together, stretching from the tip of South 

 America, from the "Horn," off across the sea to 

 Australia, over which the 'possums might once have 

 made their way ? But if they came by such a route, 

 why did not the kangaroos come too ? Ah, the kan- 

 garoo is not a 'possum. There is no other creature 

 in the woods that would dare play " Follow the 

 leader " with the 'possum. No, I am half inclined to 



