286 OBTAIN TWO OPOSSUMS. 



peared to be quiet g'entle animals, until much irri- 

 tatedj when they bite hard. We fed them at first 

 on ripe cocoa-nuts, of which they were very fond j 

 but latterly they became accustomed to pea-soup. 

 They spent most of the day in sleep in a comer of 

 tibe hen-coop where they were kept, each on its 

 haunches with the tail coiled up in front, the body 

 arched, and the head covered by the fore paws and 

 doubled down between the thig'hs; at night, how- 

 ever, they were more active and restless, their large 

 reddish yellow eyes being- then obscured by the 

 dilated pupU, which during the day appears as a 

 narrow vertical line. One was frequently taken on 

 deck towards evening and allowed to climb about 

 the rigging, moving very slowly, and endeavouring 

 to get up as high as possible. 



The natives resemble those seen at Brumer islands 

 (from which we were distant about thirty-six nules) 

 so closely that I saw no points regarding them 

 deserving of separate notice, and their language is 

 the same, judging from a small vocabulary of about 

 seventy words. The only manufactured article new 



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