THE OPOSSUMS 



101 



family all about 'the two queer bastes Oi hev kilt,' 

 adding quickly that he had killed 'thim both wid the one 

 shot from the fowlin'-pace.' On being asked what he 

 had done with his game, he pointed exultingly to the 

 clean, bare steps, but 



"It was many months before Dennis could be persuaded 

 to give up his belief that some one had stolen his 'pos- 

 sums. He never saw them again, and the story of 'play- 

 ing 'possum' is, and always will be, a sore point with 

 Dennis O'Connor." 



During certain seasons of the year, opossums are 

 often exposed in the market for sale; but the writer is 

 inclined to believe that the majority of them are pur- 

 chased by negroes, as they are very fond of them. 



There are quite a large number of different species of 

 opossums found in various parts of South America, and 

 all have very interesting habits. One little species is no 

 bigger than a mouse ; has no pouch, and carries her tiny 

 young on her back, with their little mouse-like, though 

 prehensile tails twined about her own tail for support. A 

 number of years ago, the writer heard of a bunch of 

 bananas bought in the markets of Cincinnati ; when its 

 owner came to cut them off, a male of one of these 

 diminutive opossums was found curled snugly in one of 

 the open spaces separating the fruit near the main stalk 

 inside. This specimen was later sent to the Cincinnati 

 Zoological Gardens. 



The fossil bones of opossums found in the bone caves 

 of Brazil belonged to types of didelphian species, either 

 identical with or closely allied to those forms now ex- 

 isting in the same country. The writer never speaks 

 of fossil opossums that it does not bring to mind the 

 anecdote of the great French savant Cuvier and his cele- 

 brated examination of one of them. The story is es- 

 pecially well calculated to illustrate the methods by means 

 of which zoologists and palaeontologists restore the skele- 

 tons of long extinct mammals from the discovery of a 

 few bones belonging to any one of them. Many people 

 though fortunately not anything like as many as there 

 were claim that such restorations were purely a matter 

 of guesswork on the part of the scientists, and that it 

 was impossible to know what the skeleton or probable 

 form of the animal was like, where not only it, but all 

 of its kind, had been extinct for many thousand, or 

 even for several millions of yeafs. 



But the story of the sagacious Cuvier shed considerable 

 light upon cases of this character. He had on one occa- 

 sion received a split slab of stone from the celebrated 

 quarries of Montmartre, in France. In these two halves 

 were contained the fossil bones of the best part of a 

 skeleton of some small mammal or other, of which, 

 however, only the lower jaw and some of the teeth were 

 exposed. These Cuvier closely examined, and came to 

 the conclusion that the animal was a fossil opossum, 

 closely related to existing species of that group. He 

 further announced that when the workmen in the labo- 

 ratory came to clear the skeleton of the matrix of stone 

 in which it was encased, they would find that the ani- 

 mal possessed the marsupial bones of all the opossums. 

 This part of his prophecy was subsequently fully con- 



firmed; although when he made it, the aforesaid mar- 

 supial bones were completely out of view and sealed up 

 in the solid rock containing them. Mr. Huxley, in his 

 Science and Culture and other Essays, gave us some 

 admirable deductions drawn from this very case that 

 any one may read with profit, especially one who de- 

 lights, not only in the triumphs of science, but in a brief 

 lecture upon the methods employed in scientific reasoning. 

 During all the early history of this country, zoologists 

 recognized but one species of opossum as belonging to its 

 fauna, this being the well known Common or American 

 Opossum. It was first described by Linnaeus in 1759, 

 and it was fully forty or more years after this before any 

 other species of United States opossums were described. 



FORESTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN 



rPHE Earl of Selborne accepted the vice-presidency 

 * of the Royal English Arboricultural Society, Major 

 G. L. Courthope announced, when presiding at the quar- 

 terly meeting of the council of the society, held at 16 

 Bedford Square, London. Proceeding, Major Courthope 

 said he thought that on the whole the society might feel 

 satisfied with the personnel of the forest authority. He 

 was glad to say that the spirit which the members of the 

 authority were displaying was very friendly to the society 

 and to private enterprise in general. He hoped that this 

 feeling would be continued, and that the results would be 

 good. He understood that the authority was prepared 

 almost immediately to make an announcement as to the 

 various forms of assistance to private enterprise which it 

 was prepared, with the approval of the treasury, to give. 



Mr. Leslie Wood said he thought the various bodies 

 interested might send a scheme for the government to 

 criticize rather than wait for the government to get one 

 out, cut and dried. The subject had been discussed by 

 the forestry committee of the Land Agents Society, and 

 he had prepared such a scheme which, he thought, might 

 be brought to the notice of the English Forestry Asso- 

 ciation and the Surveyors Institution. 



Mr. Duchesne announced that the British Empire 

 Timber Exhibition would be held in London in 1920. It 

 was being promoted by the overseas department of the 

 Board of Trade, and would probably be held early in 

 July, at the Holland Park Skating Rink. The object was 

 to encourage the use of timber grown within the empire 

 rather than supplies from the Baltic or other countries. 



The president said he thought an effort should be made 

 on behalf of the home-grown timber trade to see that it 

 was well represented at the Empire Timber Exhibition, 

 at least as well represented as India, Canada, Australia, 

 and other dominions. 



r PHE annual meeting of the National Wholesale Lum- 

 - 1 - ber Dealers' Association will be held at Washington, 

 D. C, on the 24th and 25th of March. Headquarters 

 will be at the New Willard Hotel, and the sessions 

 promise to be of unusual interest. 



