JANUARY. 27 



in favor of the rat. To have gone very far, however, 

 would have proved as monotonous as the silent snow- 

 bound woods, and I was planning how to create some 

 variety when, at a bend in the path, my sedate opossum 

 suddenly rolled itself into a ball, in true armadillo fash- 

 ion, and went spinning down a steep slope into an (to me) 

 impenetrable thicket of smilax. That it was a sudden 

 thought generated in the animal's brain and thus expedi- 

 tiously acted upon I do not believe. It is more probable 

 that a misstep frightened it, and the curling up on the 

 brink of a precipice, was a mere coincidence. 



If opossums, when surprised in the fields, were accus- 

 tomed to run for the woods and roll down the nearest 

 slopes into thickets, then I could believe in the forethought 

 of my opossum in the snow ; but I have never known these 

 animals to act in such a well-planned manner. 



It may be illogical to assert it and yet claim so much 

 intelligence for our other mammals, but the opossum, it 

 has always appeared to me, throve more through good 

 luck than good management. 



Practically, it is a step in advance from the stupid 

 marsupial in the thicket to blue jays in the trees above 

 it ; for, however it may run counter to the systems, there 

 can be no question of the jay's mental superiority. The 

 world acquired a new interest the moment these birds ap- 

 peared ; for the presence of birds at any time is magical in 

 effect. They are magicians that transform every scene ; 

 make of every desolate desert a garden of delights. No 

 other form of life has the same importance to the rambler. 

 I have often seen mammals under the most instructive 

 conditions, and followed in their wake thousands of rep- 

 tiles, fishes, and insects ; but my motive then was always 

 simple curiosity, a desire to learn something of their ways 

 of life, and little chagrin was mine if my labor went for 

 naught. It is different when I meet with birds. Then 



