THE OPOSSUM. 247 



CHAPTER XYIII. 



THE OPOSSUM. 



^T^RAYELLERS in Tinexplored regions are 

 •^ likely to find many unheard-of objects in na- 

 ture that awaken in their minds feelings of wonder 

 and admiration. We can imagine to ourselves the 

 surprise with which the opossum was regarded 

 by Europeans when they first saw it. Scarcely 

 anything was known of the marsupial animals, 

 as New Holland had not as yet opened its un^ 

 rivalled stores of singularities to astonish the 

 world. Here was a strange animal, with the 

 head and ears of the pig, sometimes hanging on 

 the hmb of a tree, and occasionally swinging like 

 the monkey by the tail ! Around that prehensile 

 appendage a dozen sharp-nosed, sleek-headed 

 young, had entwined their own tails, and were 

 sitting on the mother's back ! The astonished 

 traveller approaches this extraordinary com- 

 pound of an animal and touches it cautiously 

 with a stick. Instantly it seems to be struck 

 with some mortal disease : its eyes close, it falls 



