252 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
quire but little food to support them through the 
winter, particularly when the weather is cold. 
Hunting the opossum is a very favourite 
amusement among domestics and field labourers 
on our southern plantations, of lads broke loose 
from school in the holidays, and even of gentle- 
men, who are sometimes more fond of this sport 
than of the less profitable and more dangerous 
and fatiguing one of hunting the gray fox by 
moonlight. Although we have never parti- 
cipated in an opossum hunt, yet we have ob- 
served that it afforded much amusement to the 
sable group that in the majority of instances 
make up the hunting party, and we have on two 
or three occasions been the silent and gratified 
observers of the preparations that were going on, 
the anticipations indulged in, and the excitement 
apparent around us. 
Ona bright autumnal day, when the abundant 
rice crop has yielded to the sickle, and the maize 
has just been gathered in, when one or two 
slight white frosts have tinged the fields and 
woods with a yellowish hue, ripened the persim- 
mon, and caused the acorns, chesnuts and chin- 
quepins to rattle down from the trees and 
strewed them over the ground, we hear arrange 
ments entered into for the hunt. The opossums 
have been living on the delicacies of the season, 
and are now in fine order, and some are found 
