COMMON Opossum: 75 
tree in which it is secreted, ascend it with surprising agility. The 
postion of the animal being ascertained, a hole is cut with their 
ittle axes sufficiently large to admit the naked arm. The opossum 
is then seized by the tail, the chopping and jarring of the tree not 
inducing it to leave its retreat, and before it has time to bite or use 
its powerful claws it is deprived of life by a blow against the side of 
the tree and thrown to the ground ; its captor then proceeds to his 
encampment with a dinner in prospective, which he roasts in the 
ashes of his camp fire. Europeans now hunt opossums to obtain 
their skins, which, when tanned, are made into the well-known 
“opossum rugs.”’ Numbers of these are exported to England and 
New Zealand. Fur rugs of beautiful softness, close and warm, and 
of elegant appearance, are made of their skins. ‘These are used in 
the colonies not only as carriage wraps, but also instead of blankets 
by many people whose business leads them to sleep in the open air. 
As shooting opossums perforates the skin and destroys its value, 
hunters catch them in traps, or capture them in their hiding place 
during the day. Among the colonists the younger generation are 
very zealous opossum hunters. Boys search for them in the day- 
time after the fashion of the blacks, ascending the trees by stepping 
them with a tomahawk. They also hunt them by moonlight with 
dogs, which scent their tracks to a tree, or they detect them among 
the branches by the aid of the moon, when the opossum is either 
shot or driven down from the tree, and killed by the dogs. Major 
Mitchell relates that the Wollondilly natives had a song referring 
to their power of climbing, which may be translated thus :— 
“* On road the white man walks with creaking shoes, 
He cannot walk up trees, nor his feet fingers use.” 
Leichhardt, in his work on his overland expedition from Moreton 
Bay to Port Essington, writes :—‘‘ The well-know tracks of black- 
fellows are everywhere visible—-such as fresh steps cut in the trees 
to climb for opossums.” Mitchell says ‘‘the blacks of the Bogan tribe 
subsisted on the opossum, kangaroo and emu rather than on the fish 
of the river.” In the Herberton district the most common material 
used by the blacks for making ornaments -is the so-called opossum 
yarn—that is, hairs pulled out of opossum skin and twisted into 
threads by rubbing them on the thigh with the flat hand. From 
this yarn the blacks make a little apron for the waist. Opossum 
yarn is also worn in bunches on various parts of the body, as round 
the loins or over one shoulder. Sometimes a ‘‘ band” of this sort is 
thrown over each shoulder, in such a way that they form a cross on 
the breast and on the back. Frequently five or six threads of 
opossum yarn are twisted together to form a plain ornament for the 
wrist or neck. Opossum skins are also sewn together and used 
partly as articles of clothing, partly as mats. Also in Western 
Australia the blacks make string from opossums’ wool for girdles 
and headbands. Oxley, when exploring the Lachlan, one day met 
eight natives covered with cloaks of opossum skins. He also 
noticed in the bags of the gins, near the Macquarie River, thread 
formed of the sinews of opossums’ tails for sewing their cloaks, 
