74 PRETTY POLL. 



In negro folk-lore the resourceful 'possum takes the 

 place of Eeynard the Fox in European stories : he is the 

 Macchiavelli of wild beasts : there is no ruse on earth of 

 which he isn't amply capable, no artful trick which he 

 can't design and execute, no wily manoeuvre which he 

 can't contrive and carry to an end successfully. All 

 guile and intrigue, the 'possum can circumvent even 

 Uncle Eemus himself by his crafty diplomacy. And 

 what is it that makes all the difference between this 

 'cute Yankee marsupial and his backward and belated 

 Australian cousins ? Why, nothing but the possession of 

 a prehensile hand and tail. Therein lies the whole 

 secret. The opossum's hind foot has a genuine opposable 

 thumb ; and he also uses his tail in climbing as a super- 

 numerary hand, almost as much as do any of the 

 monkeys. He often suspends himself by it, like an 

 acrobat, swings his body to and fro to get up steam, 

 then lets go suddenly, and flies away to a distant branch, 

 which he clutches by means of his hand-like hind feet. 

 If the toes play him false, he can ' recover his tip," as 

 circus-folk put it, with his prehensile tail. The con- 

 sequence is that the opossum, being able to form for 

 himself clear and accurate conceptions of the real shapes 

 and relations of things by these two distinct grasping 

 organs, has acquired an unusual amount of general 

 intelligence. And further, in the keen competition of 

 the American continent, he has been forced to develop an 

 amount of cleverness and low cunning which leaves his 

 Australian poor relations far behind in the Middle Ages 

 of evolution. 



At the risk of seeming to run off at a tangent and for- 



