
76 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
Eyre, when exploring South Australia, observed that the black 
made water-bags of the skins thus :—An incision being made in the 
skin near the head of the opossum, they pulled the whole body 
through the opening. The skin being thus inverted, they tied up 
the openings with tendons where the feet and tail had been cut off 
and used it for carrying water. In the Museum, Sydney, there are 
specimens of these primitive water bags. 
Where found —Its habitat is all Australia, except the Cape 
York district. Kennedy, the ill-fated explorer, when wasting away 
from starvation in York Peninsula, promised the aboriginal Jacky 
Jacky five shillings a week if he would look for an opossum for him, 
which the black searched for all the way from Shelbourne Bay to 
Escape River, where Kennedy was speared by the blacks. No 
mammal is more frequently presented to the notice of travellers in 
the bush ; at night he hears it running about the trees, and, if the 
moon gives sufficient light, he sees it running on the ground or feed- 
ing in the branches of trees. It often visits the shepherd’s hut and 
runs about on the roof. Captain Grey noticed in the north-west of 
Australia that many a hollow tree bore witness of its having been 
smoked, in order to drive forth to certain death the trembling 
opossum which had taken refuge init. At Herbert Vale they are 
scarce in summer; the blacks assert that they disappear at that 
period and do not return before the rainy season, when they are 
abundant. To test this Lumholtz caused his blacks to climb the 
high gum trees, but they did not succeed in discovering a single 
opossum at summer time. Sturt, enumerating the animals he met 
with in Central Australia, writes:—‘* There was only one opossum 
killed, or, indeed, seen to the westward of the Barrier Range, nor 
do they appear to inhabit the interior in any numbers, since there 
were no signs of the trees having been ascended by the natives in 
search of them.” 
Sir G. Grey’s description of opossum-hunting by the blacks. —The 
savage carelessly walks up to some massive trunk which he thinks 
bears a suspicious appearance, his handsare placed thoughtlessly be- 
hind his back, whilst his dark eye glances over the bark ; suddenly 
it is for one moment stationary, and he looks eagerly at the tree, for 
he has detected the holes made by the nails of an opossum in its 
ascent. He now seeks for one of these foot-marks, which has a little 
sand attached to it and gently blows the sand, but it sticks 
together, and does not easily nove away —this isa proof that the 
animal has climbed the tree the same morning, for otherwise the 
sand would have been dried up by the heat of the sun, and not being 
held together by dampness would have been readily sweptaway before 
his breath. Having by this examination of signs, which an unskilled 
European in vain strains his eyes to detect, convinced himself that 
the opossum is in some hole of the tree, the native pulls his hatchet 
from his girdle and, cutting a small notch in the bark about four 
feet from the ground, he places the great toe of his right foot in it, 
throws his right arm round the tree, and with his left hand sticks 
the point handle of the hatchet into the bark as high up as he can 
