28 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



with a very delicate skin, and furnished underneath with 

 very delicate tubercles, the forms and relations of which 

 are too complicated to admit of description. These toes 

 are five in number on each foot, provided with rather fee- 

 ble claws, the thumb of the hind foot excepted, which has 

 none. They are strangely separated from each other in 

 walking. The thumb of the hind foot is opposable to the 

 other toes; thus forming a genuine hand, from which these 

 animals have sometimes been called Pedimana. There are 

 some weak mustaches on the upper lip, above the eye, and 

 on the cheeks. The tail may be considered as an appen- 

 dage of the organs of motion. It is prehensile and very 

 strong, but capable of involution only on the under side. 

 The sound of the Opossum's voice resembles the hissing of 

 a Cat in anger. It is about a foot and a half in length, 

 and the mean height about eight inches. The animal, in 

 the French menagerie above alluded to, was fed on raw 

 meat, and bread steeped in milk. It lapped in drinking. 

 Sometimes it would catch with open mouth, the drops of 

 water which fell from the top of its cage, and it seemed to 

 take no small pleasure in this amusement. 



The Opossum has been for a long while distinguished 

 from the other species of the genus Didelphis. Buffon has 

 spoken of it in his supplements, under the names of the 

 Sarigue of the Illinois, and the long-haired Sarigue, ima- 

 gining at the same time, that these were two distinct spe- 

 cies. Linnaeus having taken all his Didelphes from Seba, 

 could not, with such imperfect materials, exercise that cri- 

 tical discrimination with which he was so eminently gifted. 

 Pennant was the first who clearly separated this Didelphis 

 from the others, under the name of the Virginian Opossum, 

 but his figure of it is not good. As to Schreber, all his Di- 

 delphes are bad, not indeed to be recognised as intended 

 for the animals, except his Marsupialis, the colours of 

 which bear some resemblance to those of the Opossum. 



