Possums and Possum Hunting 



Paul Sargent. 



It was several years ago in the latter part of a foggy, rainy 

 night that I was awakened by the wail of a hen in distress — 

 there was no doubt about that. As it promised adventure I 

 dressed hurriedly, finally found a lantern in the dark, and called 

 the dog Bobby, an intelligent collie, always anxious to take part in 

 activities. 



After some scouting around in the blackberry briars and 

 bushes Bobby located the hen, much bedraggled and injured. 

 He also found a fresh trail leading away from the hen, through 

 a paling fence to an oak tree ten yards the other side. Bobby 

 followed it several times as far as this tree, circled many more 

 times, finally after one wide circle, nose high in air, came back 

 to the oak and sat down, barking and looking up the tree. His 

 judgment proved to be correct as the increasing light of a gray 

 dawn revealed a large possum perched upon the first branch. 

 He was soon dislodged by shaking. This was the first ^'treeing" 

 by a developing possum dog — a thing he was to repeat many times 

 later for we gave him plenty of opportunities. We went often and 

 captured from none to three a night, and no doubt the first figure 

 more often represented our nightly catch. 



One November night we started out. A rather brisk south 

 wind was eddying the dry leaves in all directions. By all the tra- 

 ditions of possum hunting we should not have gone this night on 

 account of the wind, the blowing leaves destroying the trail. 

 While crossing a pasture Bobby, without warning, caught a pos- 

 sum on the ground — a very large one. As usual with hunting 

 dogs, other than hounds, he did not bark on trail and Mr. Possum 

 was overtaken in a treeless and bushless pasture. We first knew 

 of this when we heard a mixture of growling and shaking of 

 which Bobby was doing the active part. We went on. Half way 

 through a large tract of timber Bobby ''barked treed" a hundred 

 yards to the left of our line of march. Hurrying pellmell in 

 that direction we found Bobby doing his best to climb a tree 

 while ten feet above him sat a possum, his round, black ears erect 

 and small black eyes shining like beads in the light of the lantern. 

 A short climb by one of the boys and he had him by the tail — 

 a perfectly safe handle usually. This possum was a medium 

 sized one, about half the size of the first one caught. Several 

 hundred yards further on in the same woods another trail was 

 found by Bobby. After long waiting we moved in the direction 

 we thought him to be, and found him sitting quietly, looking up 

 among the trees but at no tree in particular. After examining 



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