48 AN AUDACIOUS DEPREDATOR. 



is off with it ; and notliing now can be done, unless you 

 stand there to watch the fox or the owl, now exulting in 

 the thought that you have killed their enemy and your 

 own friend — the poor crow. That precious hen, under 

 which you last week placed a dozen eggs or so, is now 

 deprived of them. The opossum, notwithstanding her 

 angry outcries and ruffled feathers, has consumed them 

 one by one. And now look at the poor bird as she moves 

 across your yard. If not mad, she is at least stupid ; for 

 she scratches here and there, calling to her chickens all 

 the while. 



" All this comes from your shooting crows. Had you 

 been more merciful or more prudent the opossum might 

 have been kept within the woods, where it would have 

 been satisfied with a squirrel or young hare, the eggs of a 

 turkey, or the grapes that so profusely adorn the boughs 

 of our forest-trees. But I talk to you in vain. 



" But suppose the farmer has surprised an opossum in 

 the act of killing one of his best fowls. His angry feel- 

 ings urge him to kill the poor beast, which, conscious of 

 its inability to resist, rolls off like a ball. The more the 

 farmer rages, the more reluctant is the animal to manifest 

 resentment ; at last, there it lies — not dead, but exhausted, 

 its jaws open, its tongue extended, its eyes dimmed ; and 

 there it would lie until the bottle-fly should come to 

 deposit its eggs, did not its tormentor w^alk off". ' Surely,' 

 says he to himself, ' the beast must be dead. ' But no, 

 reader, it is only ' 'possuming ; ' and no sooner has its 

 enemy withdraAvn than it gradually gets on its legs, and 

 once more makes for the woods." 



