NARRATIVE OF AN 



or Mexican oppojfum, here called awaree, which had been 

 juft taken alive, and with all its young. 



I have already mentioned the murine oppolTum; thus 

 lhall now only defcribe fuch peculiarities as I was able to 

 remark, and which were indeed but few in number, the 

 animal being in the bottom of an empty hogfhead when I 

 faw it, its biting preventing me to take it in my hand.— 

 In the firft place, it was much larger than the former, 

 this being the lize of an over-grown Norway rat : the 

 colour was a yellowifh grey all over, and the belly and 

 limbs a dirty white ; the muzzle was more blunt than 

 that of the murine oppoffum, with long whifkers; its 

 eyes not black but tranfparent, with a black ring round 

 the iris ; the tail extremely long, thick, and hairy, par- 

 ticularly near the root, and its fmell was very ofFenfive, 

 This t^ppoffum had a pouch under its belly, formed by 

 the folding of the fkin, which is hairy within as well as 

 without; from this pouch I faw the young ones (five or 

 fix in number) feveral times run out, when the mother 

 was not difturbed, and as often run into it ujjon the 

 fmalleft noife, or fliaking the hogfhead. — As I pitied the 

 poor creature, after its having been fo long tormented, 

 I fuddenly kicked up the hogfhead, when the oppoffum 

 with all its young efcaped, and ran fwiftly up a very high 

 tree before Colonel Seyburg's cottage, and there it hung 

 by the tail to one of the branches ; but [as it is a dread- 

 ful deftroyer of poultry, and the Colonel apprehended that 

 3 i-t 



