THE OPOSSUMS. 



neighbouring archipelagos. They seem I... lill, in the Now World, to a certain extent, the same station 

 as the civets do in the Old ; for no species of this latter family lias yet been discovered in ih<- \\ . 

 Hemisphere. Like them, they secrete a strong odoriferous fluid ; pass the day in a state approaeliinn 

 to torpidity; prowl abroad during the night, and prey upon birds and the smaller quadruped*, 

 frequently making the poultry-yard the scene of their devastations, :md MI. -king the blood of 

 their victim before gorging themselves on its flesh. In the absence c.f more, noble pi me, they 

 make prey even of reptiles and insects; and fruits and other vegetable subslanees atl'urd a 

 common addition to their varied diet. But, unlike the civets, they live almost eniiivlv II[KIII 

 the trees ; the peculiar conformation of their hinder limbs, and the prehensile character of 

 their naked tail, rendering .them most admirable climbers. These tails arc also of e 

 in other circumstances; for the little ones, when frightened, leap upon their mother's back, twist 

 their tails around hers, and in this singular fashion escape, with her assistance, from the threatened 

 danger. 



THE VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM.* 



THIS animal is one of the largest species of the group, being, in size, fully equal to the domestic cat. 

 The pouch beneath the belly of the adult females forms a perfect sac. The almost shapeless young, of 



1IIK VIRGINIAN Ul'ossl M. 



scarcely more than a grain in weight, and generally about twelve in number, are found, at first, inse- 

 parably attached to the teats within it; as they increase in size, the teats become proportionately 

 enlarged, and are prolonged into the stomachs of the young ; and after A certain number of d;n t, 

 having attained about the size of a mouse, and all their parts being completely formed, they abandon 

 the teats, to which they thenceforward only return, like other sticking animal.*, to satisfy the on 

 of their appetites, occasionally quitting the pouch itself, but still flying to it for ihelter on the slightest 

 alarm, and finally abandoning it at the end of about fifty days from the period when they wra lir,t 

 deposited in it. 



The general colour of the Virginian opossum is a dull white, the hair 



bein of two different kinds. That which more immediately invests the body is :. long, tine, wool 

 down, white at the base, with brownUli tips, through which pass the still longer hairs , a pu, 



* Diiiclphis VirginUna. 



