The Opossums 
carnivorous, others herbivorous and still others like our opossurr 
omnivorous. 
As before stated we have only one group of marsupials in 
America, the opossums (Family Didelphide) . 
THE OPOSSUMS 
Family Didelphida 
Virginia Opossum 
Didelphis virginiana Kerr 
Length. 27 inches. 
Description. Hair long and rather coarse; general colour grayish 
white, caused by a mingling of black-tipped white under fur 
with long white overlying hairs; legs brownish black, feet 
black, toes white; head, throat and middle of lower parts 
white; ears naked, black with white tips; tail prehensile, 
nearly naked, black at the base, shading into dull flesh colour. 
Range. Southern and Middle States, except in the mountains, north 
to the Hudson and Connecticut valleys and to southern 
Illinois, not ranging north of what is known as the ‘‘ Caro- 
linian Fauna.” In Florida and Texas slightly different 
varieties occur. 
The opossum is our only representative of that remarkable 
class of beasts in which the young are born at such an early 
and undeveloped stage that the mother is obliged to carry them 
about in her pocket for several weeks; when first born a kan- 
garoo, an opossum and a mouse are of very nearly the same 
size, about half an inch in length, 
A mother opossum takes her half-dozen or more infants as 
fast as they are born and drops them into her pouch, where 
each seizes a teat and holds on; its mouth, which at first is open 
almost to the angle of the jaws, rapidly contracts and grows 
together when once it has taken hold of that which it is in- 
Sstinctively feeling for from the very first, and for the next few 
weeks the little family of brothers and sisters do nothing but 
sleep and grow, the old one forcing her milk into their mouths. 
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