52. Friern Museum or Natura History — Zoézoey, Vou. XI. 
Didelphus Virginiana Lapuam, Trans. Wis. State Agr. Soc., II, 1852 (1853), P- 337 
(Wisconsin). 
Didelphys Virginianus R. KENNICOTT, Trans. Ill. State Agr. Soc., I, 1853-54 (1855), 
p. 580 (Cook Co., Illinois). 
Didelphys Virginiana Tuomas, Trans. Ill. State Agr. Soc., IV, 1859-60 (1861), p. 656 
(Illinois). STRONG, Geol. Wis., Surv. 1873-79, I, 1883, p. 440 (Wisconsin). 
Didelphys virginiana MiLEs, Rept. Geol. Surv. Mich., 1860 (1861), p. 220 (Michigan). 
ALLEN, Proc. Bost. Soc: Nat. Hist., XIII, 1869 (1871), p. 194 (Iowa). 
OsBorn, Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., I, 1887-89 (1890), p. 44 (Iowa). Woop, Bull. 
Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist., VIII, 1910, p. 513 (Champaign Co., Illinois). 
Didelphis Virginiana Hoy, Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts & Letters, V, 1882, p. 256 
(Wisconsin). 
Type locality — Virginia. 
Distribution — Eastern United States (except’ Florida and the coast 
region of the Gulf states, where a slightly different form occurs), 
north to Long Island and New York, and west, south of the Great 
Lakes, to southern Michigan, southern Wisconsin and Iowa, thence 
southward to eastern Texas. 
Description — Adult: General color grayish white, the under fur with 
blackish tips and overlaid with long white hairs; legs blackish; feet 
black, with partly white toes; whole of the head, throat, and sides of 
the neck white, sometimes tinged with yellowish; at times a narrow 
blackish eye ring and usually a small blackish spot in front of the eye; 
ears black and nearly naked, edged with flesh color; tail nearly 
naked, dull flesh color becoming blackish at the base; toe nails and 
soles of feet flesh color; inner toe of hind foot thumb-like and without. 
nail. Female with external abdominal pouch into which the 13 
teats open and in which the young are carried and nourished after 
birth; pouch lined with soft brownish woolly hair. 
Measurements — Length, about 26 to 33 in. (680 to 850 mm.); tail, 11 to 
13.50 in, (280 to 345 mm.). 
The Virginia Opossum is common in wooded localities in southern 
Tilinois and occurs sparingly in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. 
In the latter state Moses Strong states it was ‘found occasionally in the 
vicinity of Lake Michigan” (J.c., p. 440); Hollister records three speci- 
mens having been killed in Walworth County during the past fifteen 
years (J. c., p. 137); Jackson states that three specimens were taken in 
Green County, one in January, 1902, and two in the autumn of 1906. 
Dr. Hoy writes, ‘‘The Opossum were not uncommon in Racine and Wal- 
worth counties as late as 1848. They have been caught as far north as 
Waukesha and one near Madison in 1872, since which time I have not 
heard of any being taken. I am told that a few are still found in Grant 
