A Good Habit Gone .Wrong 



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posed eye, and generally take a pretty good 

 bite from its neck and shoulders, the opossum 

 lying on its side all the time and grunting." 

 If then the feint (or faint?) does not deceive, 

 of what service is it? On the contrary, is it 

 not a fatal mistake in tactics, leading to death 

 by tame submission many an opossum which 

 might otherwise save himself by fight or flight? 

 Hence the practice seems to me an obsolete sur- 

 vival from some time and place in the past his- 

 tory of the race when such a habit was service- 

 able. Let us see whether any exterior evidence 

 exists to justify this proposition. 



It is now known and it is only very recently 

 that the facts have become clearly established 

 that the opossums are traceable farther back 

 than any other family of mammals; theirs is 

 the group lowest in organization, and most an- 

 cient in lineage. Long before the dawn (Eo- 

 cene Period) of the Tertiary Era, or " Age of 

 Mammals," away back in the Cretaceous di- 

 vision of the preceding Mesozoic time, the 

 opossum race was well defined and established. 

 -Still more remarkable is the fact that from that 



