12 



As to the opossum, our only marsupial mammal, I can say 

 only that De Kay includes it among New York's creatures ; and I 

 have been told that one was caught in East Granby within the 

 memory of people now living, some fifty-five years ago. 



Of the squirrel family (or shadow-tails, as the word means), 

 five genera and seven species are enumerated for Connecticut ; 

 but of these, one, the woodchuck, cannot be characterized as self- 

 shading by its tail. 



The fox and black squirrels must be uncommon in this State ; 

 but the black squirrel is supposed to be a variety of the gray 

 species. The gray, the red, the flying squirrel, and the chipmunk 

 are still common here. I have seen all of them in Bushnell Park. 

 The flying squirrel was seen in nests in two of its oldest elm trees 

 the last summer. 



The woodchuck {Arctomys, meaning bear-mouse) is quite com- 

 mon on our farms. Its favorite food is apples and clover blos- 

 soms. It is most common on cultivated farms, and follows civil- 

 ization everywhere. And civilization follows him — with a gun ! 



Of the beaver family we had but one genus and species, 

 Castor fiber. Beaver is an old world name for another nearly allied 

 European species. Our Indians called it tommunque. A stream 

 in Pomfret (its ancient name being Tommunquas) is derived 

 from the Indian word for beaver. The Red men did not often use 

 the names of animals in connection with natural features of the 

 country. The explanation may be the fact that bears, deer, 

 wolves, and beaver were so common that no one locality was par- 

 ticularly noted for their presence. But our ancestors had many 

 "Beaver Brooks" and "Beaver Meadows," and many of these 

 descriptive titles remain to-day. 



Beaver were very common about Hartford. In 1637, when 

 the General Court rated wampum-peag (made from parts of the 

 shell of the quahaug clam) at four to the penny, beaver-skins 

 were rated at nine shillings per pound, and they were actually 

 used as currency. I do not find that any legislative measures 

 were taken to prevent their extermination, and now, alas ! they 

 are gone from Connecticut, and perhaps from New England, for- 

 ever. 



The remains of their dams, which were constructed of per- 

 ishable material, are now sometimes seen ; and submerged trunks 

 of trees are sometimes exhumed, as in Wethersfield, bearing the 

 marks of their cutting-teeth, made in felling the trees from which 

 the dams were built. 



In the mouse family {Mures) I will include the jumping-mouse 

 (not a mouse), the rats, mice, and voles (or meadow-mice). And 



