70 WILD NEIGHBORS chap. 



Perhaps this is as good a place as any to speak 

 of one of the most comical uses to which a tail is 

 put — that in the opossum family. Here the rat- 

 like, wiry tail is decidedly prehensile — a feature 

 to be spoken of later. The opossum uses it con- 

 stantly to grasp the limbs and assist her climbing 

 and holding on. When her young are large enough 

 to go out with her, which is soon after they are 

 born, she endeavors to lead or carry them through 

 the tree-tops, and struggles to climb about the 

 branches, and make use of her prehensile tail as 

 she is accustomed to do; but she often finds that 

 member of no use, for eight or ten squeaking little 

 brats, miniatures of herself, are digging their sharp 

 toes into her fur and clinging with their own tails 

 tightly twisted around hers, which is curved over 

 her back to form a hand-rail for the young crew. 

 If one lets go of this convenient member, it is 

 only to take a convulsive half-hitch around some 

 twig, and thus anchor the whole company, or to 

 choke the poor mother by a twist around her throat 

 or impede her movements by a death-like grasp of 

 one or more of her legs. The same useful mem- 

 ber — a fifth hand, as it has often been called — 

 enables baby monkeys of the prehensile-tailed 

 South American kinds, to cling to the mothers 

 in their almost aerial flights through the tree- 

 tops. 



The use of its tail as a tool (distinguished from 

 a weapon) is common enough in the animal king- 



