.The Wit of the Wild 



r 



and dunderheaded a way that it seems hardly 

 worthy the name of an intellectual performance, 

 like the fox's use, on occasion, of a similar de- 

 vice in stalking or ambushing his prey. It 

 looks to me more like the action of an instinct 

 which has lost its steering gear an instinct 

 that has outgrown the circumstances which 

 originated it and in which it was advantageous. 

 Of what service now is the time-honored ruse? 

 How many of the opossum's enemies are now 

 sufficiently deceived by his little game to go 

 away and leave him? Would a cat or a dog, a 

 wolf or a big owl, neglect to seize and eat him 

 (if they cared to dogs won't touch the flesh) 

 because of his pretense? What do they care 

 whether he is dead or not if the former, so 

 much the easier for them. But their noses tell 

 them better. Dr. Lincecum says that in Texas 

 he has repeatedly seen turkey buzzards alight 

 " near where they find an opossum feeding in 

 the woods and, running up on him, flap their 

 wings violently over him a few times, when the 

 opossum goes into a spasm, and the buzzards 

 very deliberately proceed to pick out its ex- 

 * 136 So 



