DOES TEE OPOSSUM PLAT "'POSSUM"? 89 



the enemies characteristic of the different environment 

 of that time, do so ? Here it may be added that the 

 results of this supposed feigning are never such as to 

 warrant the animal in so doing. 



2. The assertion that the opossum feigns death neces- 

 sarily assumes that the animal in question realizes what 

 death is. While it may "be admitted that, being a semi- 

 carnivorous mammal, it must know what the death of its 

 prey means, does any animal realize that that is its own 

 inevitable fate ? When badly wounded, or worn out 

 with age, an animal " crawls away to die," but is it not 

 as probable that, in seeking a retired spot, it does so 

 with hopes of recovery, rather than with a feeling of res- 

 ignation at its approaching dissolution ? I must confess, 

 however, that the well-known fact that scorpions can be 

 induced to commit suicide, appears to effectually set aside 

 my belief ; unless, indeed, this act on the part of scorpions 

 may have some other than a suicidal explanation. Still, 

 I am disposed to believe that the pleasant knowledge of 

 approaching death and its certainty is confined to man. 

 If so, then in fancying that we see death feigned on the 

 part of the opossum, we ascribe to it a process of reason- 

 ing which is fallacious, and would, if persisted in, have 

 resulted in the extermination of the species ; while as a 

 fact we find that it has, on the contrary, been able to 

 withstand the encroachments of farming operations, and 

 the destruction of timber about its haunts, which have 

 driven off some of the smaller and all of the larger mam- 

 mals. If this is the habit of the opossum, it must neces- 

 sarily have originated long prior to the advent of man 

 upon the earth, and been acquired as a safeguard against 

 the attacks of enemies not now existing, which would 

 not molest it if they supposed it to be dead. At present, 

 this supposed habit is not a protection against the attacks 



