39 6 HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 



covered with hair; its legs are (hort; and its feet or 

 hands not unlike thofe of a Monkey, having five toes or 

 fingers on each ; the thumbs on the hind feet are defti- 

 tute of nails. But the peculiar and diftinguifhing cha-^ 

 racteriflic of the Opoflum is a pouch or falfe belly, in 

 which the female depofits her young immediately after 

 they are brought forth, and nourifhes them in it till they 

 are able to provide for themfelves. 



The Chevalier d'Aboville, whilft in America during 

 the late war, in order to be fatisfied refpecting the time 

 of its geflation, manner of bringing forth, and fuckling 

 its young, procured a male and female Opoflum, which 

 he tamed, and kept in his chamber till they copulated. 

 Ten days after, he obferved a confiderable alteration in 

 the fize and form of the pouch ; its aperture being wider 

 than it was before, and its orifice thicker: From that 

 time it gradually grew clofer, leaving only a fmall open- 

 ing in the middle, fimilar to a navel : On the fifteenth 

 day he introduced his finger, and found at the bottom of 

 the bag a fmall round body, about the fize of a pea : The 

 twenty-fifth day he could feel a motion under his finger. 

 After the young had been a month in the pouch, they 

 were plainly to be feen, on opening it a little. At the 

 end of two months, on examining the pouch, there ap- 

 peared to be fix young ones ; all of them attached to the 

 mother by a canal that entered the mouth, which, if 

 withdrawn, could not be replaced ; but when fix weeks 

 old, the young Opoflum could refume it by ftrong fuc- 

 tion, the mouth being then large enough to receive the 

 pap, which is about two lines in length, and the fize of 

 the fecond or third firing of a violin. 



The number of the young varies from five to ten or 

 eleven. 



