POSSUMS AND POSSUM HUNTING 133 



fallen, leafy tree top where he was found curled up asleep. His 

 back track showed that he had vacated a very commodious and 

 comfortable hollow hickory for his cooler quarters in the tree top. 

 The food of the possum in the Fall season is principally fruit. 

 In the winter time he must obtain considerable food among the 

 leaves of the woods for his very crooked trail when not alarmed 

 indicates that he does much nosing around in the brush. With 

 the coming of Fall he regales himself on apples and wild grapes, 

 and persimmons are proverbial as possum feed. Whatever may 

 be his food he invariably waxes fat and thereby conserves a 

 supply of bodily energy to tide him over the winter months of 

 cold and deep snow when his journeys in search of food are far 

 between. But he does come forth with the warmer nights of rain 

 or melting snow. Next morning one may sometimes see his tracks 

 in the snow where he meandered down the top rail of the fence 

 a hundred yards or more, paused here and there, pondering the 

 weather, perhaps, then meandered back again to his den in the 

 maple against the fence, without finding anything eatable. He 

 does occasionally turn up in a hen house but his raids there do not 

 compare wnth the damage done by a mink or weasel sometimes. 

 A possum — because of his dazed condition when confronted with 

 a bright li.2:ht— is almost always captured, dead or alive, in spite 



