30 
MAMMALIA. 
as the man, thinking that he has killed it, turns his back, the 
rogue decamps as fast as he can, and regains the forest.* The 1 
Opossum is ferocious, and will not allow itself to be tamed. The ; 
Crab- eating Opossum is a species of about the same size as the 3 
preceding. It owes its name to its peculiar diet. Living on the ; 
sea- shore, it feeds principally on crabs, which it captures very r 
adroitly. It is found in the Brazils and in Guiana. More than 1 
twenty other species are known to naturalists, all of them being 
peculiar to South America, with the exception of the Virginian 1 
Opossum. It is remarkable that there are not any in the Antilles 
or West Indian Islands. 
Buffon describes, under the name of the “ Small Otter of Guiana,” 
a species of Opossum hardly as large as the Brown Bat, and which 
owes to its hind feet being webbed its power of swimming like the 
Otter. It is the Yapock ( Chironectes variegatus ) of modern natu- 
ralists, who have raised it to the dignity of a genus, chiefly on 
account of this peculiarity. 
They have also established another genus for a certain number 
of species, in which the abdominal pouch is replaced by a simple 
fold of skin, insufficient for protecting the little ones during 
mammary gestation. The mode of generation is, however, the 
same in these Marsupials as in all the others ; only when they 
begin to walk, and any danger threatens them, the young ones, 
instead of taking refuge in their mother’s pouch, as do the little 
Kangaroos, &c., mount on her back, and aid themselves in holding 
on by twining their tails round their mother’s tail. This sight 
greatly excites the curiosity of those travellers who witness it for 
the first time.f 
* Many animals, of various classes, do the same, especially numerous insects. A 
Fox has been seen to counterfeit death ; and one of the most extraordinary cases of 
the kind which we happen to have personally witnessed occurred in the instance of a 
Jackal worried by Dogs, in India. — Ed. 
f In the Australian colonies the names of familiar animals inhabiting other parts 
of the world are transferred, and are misapplied to the indigenous Marsupials. Thus 
the Thylacin is known as the native Wolf, Tiger, and Hyena; the Dasyures are 
styled native Cats, the Koala is the native Bear, the Wombat the native Badger, the 
Long-eared Bandacoot is the native Rabbit, and the Phalangers and Petaurists are 
native Squirrels and Flying Squirrels. Again, the monotrematous Echidna is the 
native Porcupine, and the Duckbill is the Water Mole. — Ed. 
