Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1917 — OPOSSUM HAS QUEER TRAITS [ARTICLE]

OPOSSUM HAS QUEER TRAITS

Slow-Moving, Stupid Animal, One of the Most Widely Known In America. The Virginia opossums (the only species occurring in the United States) have from five to fourteen young, which at first are naked, formless little objects, so firmly attached to the teats In their mother’s pouch that they cannot be shaken loose. Later, when they obtain a coating of hair, they are miniature replicas of the adults, but continue to occupy the pouch until the swarming family becomes for it The free toes of opossums' are used like hands for grasping, and the young cling firmly to the fur of their mother while being carried about in her wanderings. They are rather slow-moving, stupid animals, which seek safety by their retiring nocturnal habits and by uonreslstance when overtaken by an enemy. This last trait gives origin to the familiar term, “playing ’possum.” While hunting at daybreak I once encountered an unusually large old male opossum on his way home from a night in the forest. When we met he Immediately stopped and stood with hanging head and tall and half-closed •yes. I walked up and, after watching him for several minutes without seeing the slightest movement, put. my foot against his side and gave a slight push. He promptly fell flat and lay limp and apparently dead. The opossum has always been a favorite game animal In the Southern states, and figures largely in the songs and folk-lore of the Southern negroes. In addition, Its remarkable peculiarities have excited so much popular interest that it has become one of the most widely known of American animals. —National Geographic Magazine.