252 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



quire but little food to support them througli tlie 

 winter, particularly when the weather is cold. 



Hunting the opossum is a very favourite 

 amusement among domestics and field labourers 

 on our southern plantations, of lads broke loose 

 from school in the holidays, and even of gentle- 

 men, who are sometimes more fond of this sport 

 than of the less profitable and more dangerous 

 and fatiguing one of hunting the gray fox by 

 moonlight. Although we have never parti- 

 cipated in an opossum hunt, yet we have ob- 

 served that it afforded much amusement to the 

 sable group that in the majority of instances 

 make up the hunting party, and we have on two 

 or three occasions been the silent and gratified 

 observers of the preparations that were going on, 

 the anticipations indulged in, and the excitement 

 apparent around us. 



On a bright autumnal day, when the abundant 

 rice crop has pelded to the sickle, and the maize 

 has just been gathered in, when one or two 

 slight white frosts have tinged the fields and 

 woods with a yellowish hue, ripened the persim- 

 mon, and caused the acorns, chesnuts and chin- 

 quepins to rattle down from the trees and 

 strewed them over the ground, we hear arrange- 

 ments entered into for the hunt. The opossums 

 have been living on the delicacies of the season, 

 and are now in fine order, and some are found 



