THE OPOSSUiM. 457 



animals of this species to them, I offered a price a little above the com- 

 mon, and soon found myself plentifully supplied, twenty-five having been 

 brought to me. I found them excessively voracious, and not less coward- 

 ly. They were put into a large box, with a great quantity of food, and 

 conveyed to a steamer bound for New Orleans. Two days afterwards, I 

 went to the city, to see about sending them off to Europe ; but, to my 

 surprise, I found that the old males had destroyed the younger ones, 

 and eaten off their heads, and that only sixteen remained alive. A sepa- 

 rate box Avas purchased for each, and some time after they reached my 

 friends the Rathbones of Liverpool, who, with their usual attention, 

 sent them off to London, where, on my return, I saw a good number of 

 them in the Zoological Gardens. 



This animal is fond of grapes, of which a species now bears its name. 

 Persimons are greedily eaten by it, and in severe weather I have ob- 

 served it eating lichens. Fowls of every kind, and quadrupeds less 

 powerful than itself, are also its habitual prey. 



The flesh of the Opossum resembles that of a young pig, and would 

 perhaps be as highly prized, were it not for the prejudice generally en- 

 tertained against it. Some " very particular" persons, to my knowledge, 

 have pronounced it excellent eating. After cleaning its body, suspend 

 it for a whole week in the frosty air, for it is not eaten in summer ; then 

 place it on a heap of hot wood embers ; sprinkle it when cooked with 

 gunpowder ; and now tell me, good reader, does it not equal the famed 

 Canvas-back Duck .? Should you visit any of our markets, you may see 

 it there in company with the best game. 



