THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
too near his jaws or a fierce bite is likely to reveal the savage 
beneath the actor. Foxes and a good many other animals will 
play the same ruse, and ordinary folks have taken the thing 
for what it seems, and called it an instinctive feigning of death. 
8S. M. Lottridge, Phot. 
PLAYING ‘POSSUM. 
Others have asserted that it is really a case of being frightened 
into a paralysis, — that it is not pretense at all, but an actual 
swooning from terror. But those who best know the little beast 
cling to the old notion. 
“T have known the ’possum too long,” exclaims Professor Sharp, “‘ for 
a ready faith in his extreme nervousness, too long to believe him so hys- 
terical that the least surprise can frighten him into fits. He has a reason- 
able fear of dogs; no fear at all of cats; and will take his chances any 
night with a coon for the possession of a hollow log. He will live in the 
same burrow with other ’possums, with owls, — with anything in fact, — 
and overlook any bearable imposition; he will run away from everything, 
venture anywhere, and manage to escape from the most impossible situa- 
tions. Is this an epileptic, unstrung, flighty creature? Possibly; but look 
at him. He rolls in fat; and how long has obesity been the peculiar accom- 
paniment of nervousness ?”’ 
518 
