THE OPOSSUM FAMILY 189 
general settlement of that country and the systematic kill- 
ing of the animals for their skins, which are used as leather 
for shoes, have so greatly reduced the number that now one 
must go far inland in order to find them wild. 
Few persons, I venture to say, have the slightest concep- 
tion of the number of Kangaroo and Wallaby skins annually 
consumed by the leather trade for shoe uppers, as they are 
soft and not given to cracking. One firm in New York handles 
about 72,000 per year. In 1911 and 1912 C. M. Lampson & Co. 
of London sold the following: 
1911 1912 
Australian Wallaby Skins.... ..... . 1,003,820 540,608 
Australian Kangaroo Skins.... ...... 21,648 16,193 
1,025,468 556,801 
Most pouched mammals are strictly herbivorous, but 
some, like the opossum and Tasmanian wolf, are true flesh- 
eaters. 
THE OPOSSUM FAMILY 
Didelphyidae 
The New World contains more than twenty species of 
omnivorous animals, varying in size from a large cat to a small 
rat, mostly provided with long, hairless tails that are fully 
prehensile, and always well clad with fine and abundant 
hair. In all species save a few the female possesses the 
abdominal pouch to which every marsupial female is entitled. 
In some species, however, it is either rudimentary or wholly 
lacking. These animals are the Opossums, and while the 
majority of the species are confined to South America, our 
