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THE VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM. (Didelphis Virginiana, Cuv.) 



This species inhabits all America, but is most abundant in 

 the north of Mexico, and throughout nearly the whole of the 

 United States. 



It is one of the largest of the group, being as large as a 

 domestic cat of the average size. The longer, and therefore 

 more conspicuous, hairs of the body are of a pure white colour ; 

 while the shorter hairs, observable wherever the others are 

 ruffled or spread apart, are like fibres of fine woolly down, 

 each of which is white at the base and brownish at the tips. 

 Owing to this mixture of colour the coat of the animal generally 

 appears to be dull white. The hair on the head, neck, and 

 under parts of the body, is short and close ; on the upper 

 portion of the tail the hair is long and profuse, but the greater 

 part of its length is only scantily supplied with short bristles, 

 growing from between the small whitish scales, which protect 

 it 5 the whiskers are long, partly white and partly reddish ; the 

 end of the nose is of a flesh-colour, tinged with yellow; each 

 eye is surrounded by a brownish circle ; the ears are generally 

 black at the base and yellowish at the tips ; the second false 

 molar tooth is, according to M. A. Valenciennes, much higher 

 than those next to it, and differs from them ;* the legs are 



* This writer observes, that in the Didelphis murina, " the false molars are 

 of the same height, and are equally pressed one against an other ; they are, like 

 nearly all the false molars of the true Carnaria, triangular, and have on each 

 side a small supplementary tubercle. The posterior molars have two points, 



