ANIMALS. ^jl 



the size of a small cat. The head resembles that of a fox ; it 

 iias iifty teeth in all, but two great ones in the midst like those 

 of a rat. The eyes are little, round, clear, lively, and placed 

 upright J the ears are long, broad, and transparent, like those ot 

 the rat kind ; its tail also increases the similitude, being round, 



tations of men, and sleeps there the live-long day. Seeing but badiy while 

 the sun is above the horizon, it is in the night that it proceeds in search ot 

 food, and of the female during the season of its amours. It mounts trees, 

 penetrates into f;u-m-yards, attacks the small birds and poultry, sucks their 

 blood, devoiu-s their eggs, and then returns to conceal itself at the bottom of 

 its retreat. It frequently contents itself with reptiles and insects, and fruits 

 occasionally form a portion of its food. Though its mode of life is very ana- 

 logons to that of the foxes and weasels, it is considerably less sanguinary 

 and cruel. The opossums are also much worse provided with the means of 

 defence, than these animals. They run badly, and though their mouth is 

 extremely large and well furnished with teeth, yet it is deficient in strength, 

 and they are wanting in that intelligence which might render it an efficient 

 weapon against their enemies. They attempt to bite the stick wliich strikes 

 them, but not the arm which guides it ; very different in this respect from 

 most other mammalia, which, by a very remarkable act of intelligence, dis- 

 tinguish the person from tlie instrument v/hich he uses, and invariably attat^k 

 tlie former. Their chief resource of defence seems to consist in the dis- 

 agreeable odour which they exhale when they find tliemselves in danger. 

 M. D'Azara, who speaks of it from experience, declaies it to be really in- 

 supportable. All their desires seem feeble, even that of re-production. 



The species of the sarigues are inter-distinguished from the opossum by 

 shades of difference so very easy to confound, that the character raay.be lost 

 by the slightest negligence. 



The CayopoUin, or Mexican Opossum, is about eight inches long, and the 

 taU is about a foot. The muzzle is inclining to be tliiok, and the ears are 

 rather large. The eyes are slightly bordered with blackish. It is marked 

 in the frontal ridge witli a longitudinal lino of brown, grayish on the edges. 

 All the upper and external parts are of a fawn colour and gray intermingled, 

 the summit of the hairs being of the former, and the rest of them of the lat- 

 ter colour. The fawn colour predominates on the occiput and the neck. 

 The rest of the animal is of a very pale and ahnost whitish yellow. The 

 ears are naked at their internal face. The tail is covered with hairs foi 

 something more than an inch from its origin, and the rest with scales, inter 

 mingled with some brush hairs. Pait of the tail is variegated with brown 

 and yellow, the point being of tliis last colour. 



The Touati, or short- tailed Opossum {D. Tricolor vel brachyura,) is some, 

 tiling more than five inches, and the tail a little more than an inch. Its ears 

 are of moderate size, naked, and of a rounded form. The tail is very short 

 in comparison of the other species of tliis genus ; hairy at the base, and naked 

 and scaly for the rest of its extent. Upper part of the body, back of the head, 

 and hairs on the basis of the tail, blackish. Cheeks, shoulders, flanks, throat, 

 external side of the thiglis and paws of a lively red. The breast and under 

 part of the body of a pure white. 



'i here are other species of didelphes enumerated by naturalists. 



