96 



WINTER 



think the scientists right who say that the 'possum 

 is the great-great-grandfather of all the marsupials, 

 and that the migration might have been the other 

 way about from America, across the sea. 



But what is the use of speculating? Here is the 

 'possum in our woods ; that we know ; and yonder ' 

 in Australasia are his thirteen sets of cousins, and 

 there they seem always to have been, for of these 

 thirteen sets of cousins, four sets have so long since 

 ceased to live that they are now among the fossils, ; 

 slowly turning, every one of them, to stone ! 



A queer history he has, surely ! But queerer than 

 his history, is his body, and the way he grows from 

 babyhood to twenty-pound 'possumhood. 



For besides having a tail that can be used for a 

 hand, and a paw with a thumb like the human thumb, 

 the female 'possum has a pocket or pouch on her 

 abdomen, just as the kangaroo has, in which she 

 carries her young. 



Now that is peculiar, so very peculiar when you 

 study deeply into it, that the 'possum becomes to 

 the scientist quite the most interesting mammal in 

 North America. 



Returning from a Christmas vacation one year, 

 while a student in college, I brought back with me 

 twenty-six live 'possums so that the professor of 

 zoology could study the peculiar anatomy of the 

 'possum for several of its many meanings. 



This pouch, for instance, and the peculiar bones 



