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WINTER 



taken the fat fellow in an open field or atop a fence, 

 or have even caught him in a hencoop; but usually, if 

 hunting at night, it has been a long, and not always 

 an easy, chase, for a 'possum, in spite of his fat 

 and his fossil ancestors, is not stupid. Or else he 

 is so slow-witted that there is no telling, by man 

 or dog, which way he will go, or what he may do 

 next. 



A rabbit, or a deer, or a coon, when you are on 

 their trail, will do certain things. You can count 

 i upon them with great certainty. But a 'possum never 

 I seems to do anything twice alike; he has no traveled 

 paths, no regular tricks, no set habits. He knows 

 the road home, but it is always a different road a 

 meandering, roundabout, zigzag, criss-cross, up-and- 

 down (up-the-trees-and-down) road, we-won't-get- 

 home-till-morning road, that takes in all the way 

 stations, from the tops of tall persimmon trees to 

 the bottoms of all the deep, dark holes that need 

 looking into, along the route. 



Peculiar ! So, at least, a dog with an orderly 

 mind and well-regulated habits thinks, anyhow. 

 For a 'possum trail will give a good rabbit dog the 

 blues ; he has n't the patience for it. Only a slow 

 rheumatic old hound will stick to a 'possum trail 

 with the endurance necessary to carry it to its end 

 in a hollow log, or a hollow stump, or under a 

 shock of corn or a rail-pile. Once the trail actually 

 led me, after much trouble, into a hen-house and 



