On these expeditions he picks up frogs, fish, 

 eggs, birds, mice, corn, and in winter a chicken 

 here and there. 



In the edge of a piece of woods along the 

 Cohansey there used to stand a large hen-coop 

 surrounded by a ten-foot fence of wire netting. 

 One winter several chickens were missing here, 

 and though rats and other prowlers about the 

 pen were caught, still the chickens continued to 

 disappear. 



One morning a possum was seen to descend 

 the wire fence and enter the coop through the 

 small square door used by the fowls. We ran 

 in ; but there was no possum to be found. We 

 thought we had searched everywhere until, 

 finally, one of us lifted the lids off a rusty old 

 stove that had been used to heat the coop the 

 winter before, and there was the possum, with 

 two companions, snug and warm, in a nest of 

 feathers on the grate. 



Here were the remains of the lost chickens. 

 These sly thieves had camped in this stove ever 

 since autumn, crawling in and out through the 

 stovepipe hole. During the day they slept 

 quietly ; and at night, when the chickens were 

 [28] 



