122 
VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM. 
three ol the young from the teats, one of which perished under the pro- 
cess, we replaced the two living ones in the pouch ; at nine o’clock ex- 
amined her again and found both the young once more attached. We 
came to the conclusion, that she shoved them into the pouch, and 
with her nose or tongue moved them to the vicinity of the teats, 
Avhere by an instinct of nature, the teat was drawn into the small orifice of 
the mouth by suction. We observed subsequently, that a young one that 
had been extracted from its parent a few moments before the time when 
it would have been born, and which had been rolled up in warm cotton, 
was instinctively engaged in sucking at the fibres of the cotton, and had 
succeeded in drawing into its mouth a considerable length of thread. A 
nearly similar process was observed by our friend Dr. Michel. He 
states : “The female stood on her hind legs, and the body being much 
bent, the young appeared and were licked into the pouch.” 
There is a great difficulty in deciding the question, whether the mother 
aids the young in finding the teats, in consequence of the impossibility of 
the spectators being able to know what she is actually doing, whilst her 
nose is in the pouch. We believe the majority of naturalists who had an 
opportunity of witnessing our experiments came to the conclusion, that the 
mother, after shoving them into the pouch, left them to their owui instinct, 
and they became attached without her assistance. We tried another ex- 
periment that suggested itself to us. Believing that the mother would 
not readily adopt the young of another, or afford them any assistance, we 
removed six out of ten that composed her brood, returned two of her own 
to the pouch, together with three others fully double the size, that had been 
obtained from another female. She was soon observed doubled up with 
her nose in the pouch, and continued so for an hour, when she was exam- 
ined and one of her own small ones was found attached to the teat. 
Seven hours afterwards she was examined again, and both the small ones 
were attached, but the three larger ones still remained crawling about 
the pouch. On the following morning, it was ascertained that the mother 
had adopted the strangers, as the whole family of different sizes were 
deriving .sustenance from her. 
On another occasion, a female Opossum had been sent to us caught by 
a dog and much wounded, in consequence of which she died a few days 
afterwards, but first producing seven young which to every appearance 
had been still born. Yet they were in the pouch, and it appeared to us 
that the mother’s uncontrollable attachment to her young, induced her 
to place her offspring in the pouch, even after they were dead. 
An interesting inquiry remains to be answered : Is the Opossum a 
placental or non-placental animal ? Until we were favoured with a 
recent opportunity of carefully examining a uterus, containing nine 
