THE OPOSSUM, 
245 
of suffocation is avoided by the elongated and conical form 
of the upper extremity of the larynx, which is embraced by 
the soft palate, as in the Cetacea, and thus respiration goes 
on freely, while the milk passes, on each side of the laryn- 
geal cone, into the oesophagus." (Huxley.) 
Long after the young are weaned, and when they are 
partly grown, they run into the pouch upon the approach 
of danger, or enter it when tired, and, there safely ensconced, 
peeping out to see if the danger is past, they present a 
comical sight. 
The lowest marsupial is the Tasmanian wolf, which is 
rather smaller than the true wolf. The Tasmanian devil 
is a vicious creature, troublesome to settlers; it is about 
the size of a badger. 
The opossums inhabit North and South America. They 
have a long, nearly naked, scaly tail, and they walk, like 
bears, on the sole of the whole foot. The species range in 
size from being a little larger than a mouse to the size of 
a cat, and they live on birds and their eggs, reptiles and 
insects. The Virginian opossum {Didelpliys Virginiana, 
Fig. 285) lives for the most part in trees. Lawson says 
that the female doubtless breeds her young at her teats, 
for I have seen them stick fast thereto when they have been 
no bigger than a small raspberry and seemingly inanimate. 
She has a paunch, or false belly, wherein she carries her 
young after they are from those teats, till they can shift for 
themselves. Their food is roots, poultry, or wild fruits. 
They have no hair on their tails, but a sort of a scale or 
hard crust, as the beavers have. If a cat has nine lives, 
this creature surely has nineteen; for if you break every 
bone in their skin and mash their skull, leaving them for 
dead, you may come an hour after and they will be gone 
quite away, or perhaps you may meet them creeping away.'* 
(^^ Perfect Description of Virginia," 1649.)* 
* Gosse, in his "Letters from Alabama," thus describes this ani- 
mal's trick of ''playing 'possum." The creature had been worried 
