The Opossums 



About the most marked exhibition of intelligence that they ever 

 appear to display is their well-known trick of feigning death or 

 playing possum as a last resort in danger. Even this has become 

 so habitual with the species as to be almost or quite instinctive 

 and it is doubtful if they ever knowingly pretend to be dead 

 any more than the numerous beetles and spiders which possess 

 the same habit. 



Nature most effectually assists the possum in making the 

 ruse successful, as anyone who has ever seen it tried is bound 

 to admit, for the long lean dull white jaws and black withered 

 ears and skinny tail bear in themselves the very semblance of 

 death. And when the possum plays possum he invariably draws 

 back the gums from his glittering white teeth until he looks as 

 if he might have been dead for a month; especially as his fur 

 has at all times the faded, colourless look and loose wind-blown 

 texture of hair that has been exposed to wind and weather for 

 an entire season. 



In cold weather opossums retire to their dens and only 

 occasionally venture abroad when there is snow on the ground. 

 They are members of an almost tropical race that hates the 

 cold, and wherever winter is an actual fact they are rarely found. 



"Opossums are very prolific, having two or three litters each 

 year, each litter composed of from six to thirteen, in rare in- 

 stances as many as fourteen or fifteen. The young remain with 

 their mother about two months, and at times a brood of suck- 

 lings may be found in the pouch, while a second brood the size 

 of rats may be seen on her back, clinging to her fur with their 

 hands and steadying themselves by winding their tails around her 

 tail and legs. 



"The opossum somewhat resembles a little pig in his flexible 

 snout, small black eyes, and erect ears; but he resembles the pig 

 much more in his fondness for eating and the great variety of 

 food that suits his taste. 



"His principal diet consists of insects, wild fruits, nuts and 

 berries, varied with roots, reptiles, crayfish, carrion, eggs, small 

 rats and mice, with additions of poultry, corn, sweet potatoes, and 

 other farmyard delicacies." "He is the natural enemy of the cotton 

 rat, a destructive rodent living in vast numbers in the seaboard 

 marshes of the Southern States. If all the food eaten by a possum 

 during the year were divided into two piles according to its 



