ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
61 
unhurt and ready to run away the instant it can be done 
safely ; and it is said that no infliction of pain will make him 
shew the least signs of life. This is what is called “ playing 
possum” in the West, a saying which has become almost 
universal. 
The Opossums are very tenacious of life, a fact which has 
led to a Virginian proverb, “ If a cat has nine lives, an 
opossum has nineteen.” They treat their young with the 
greatest affection, receiving them into their wonted place of 
protection on the least alarm, and when there is not time for 
this, the little ones wind their tails around that of the mother, 
and thus all escape. They do not drink by lapping, but by 
suction. There is not much probability of the species becom- 
ing extinct, as the young amount to from twelve to sixteen 
at a birth, and their nocturnal habits do not require them to 
remove far from the haunts of men. 
The Glires or Rodentia constitute the next family, so 
called from the two large cutting teeth found in each jaw. 
They have no canine teeth ; live almost exclusively on vege- 
table food ; have two incisors in each jaw, large, strong, and 
remote from the grinders. This order comprises a great 
number of the smaller quadrupeds. Of these, The Beaver 
( Castor Fiber ,) is the most useful to man. 
Description . — Fur dense, body thick and clumsy, head 
broad and conical, eyes small and black, ears short and 
rounded, and almost concealed in the fur ; tail broad, flat- 
tened, oval, naked, and scaly ; back arched. 
The Beaver is an animal possessed of a large amount of 
instinct ; but though Buffon and many early writers have made 
it appear endowed with extraordinary sagacity, a rational 
view shows us, that it is not more blessed than any animal in 
its own sphere. The greater part of its history as generally 
accepted and related is fabulous ; and it is only from the 
most authentic sources that we get a reliable account of its 
habits. The construction of dams by them is so well known 
