A Good Habit Gone Wrong 



r 



the opossum plays 'possum," as Witmer Stone 

 remarks, " he invariably draws back the gums 

 from his glittering white teeth until he looks 

 as if he had been dead for a month." You may 

 roll the creature about with your foot, explore 

 the pouch, pick it up and carry it by its tail, 

 offer it almost any indignity, and it will in most 

 cases neither resist nor complain ; but take your 

 eye off it as it lies upon the ground, and it will 

 soon jump up and scuttle away, or if you pick 

 it up carelessly enough to give it a chance it 

 may nip you savagely. Severely injured, as in 

 the jaws of a big dog, or under the club of a 

 darkey eager to sop sweet potatoes in 'possum 

 gravy, the animal protests, but yields as if ut- 

 terly discouraged. 



This behavior does not bear out the theory 

 held by some naturalists, that the action is not 

 a ruse, but an involuntary paralysis due to sud- 

 den, hysterical fear; to one who knows the 

 creature nervousness and hysterics are the last 

 things to be thought of. It will hardly do 

 then to believe it a physiological effect ; and yet 

 it is exercised in so irregular and often useless 



^ 135 



