familiar walls would have ensured the return of his tormentors the same night.
However, in spite of our neighbour's experience, I was not unwilling to accept as a present an opossum which was brought to me by a poor fellow who had captured it whilst he was at work in the bush. It is a pity that in giving the opossum its name, zoologists should have chosen one so ill according with the English language as to render certain its wrong pronunciation by all but well-educated persons; nevertheless as pet names, whether of children or domestic animals, are always allowed to undergo unphilosophical changes, we hoped that in styling our opossum "Possie," we might be pardoned for dropping the awkward first syllable. A Spaniard who was steward of the ship in which we returned to England, and who was bringing home an opossum, not only modified its name to suit his own tongue, but went a step farther, and, with the courtliness of his nation, added to it a title, dubbing the creature El Señor Posimo.
I have compared the kangaroo to a booted man hopping about the house on one leg, but the movements of the opossum suggest, on the contrary, those of a person who has taken his boots off for the purpose of making as little disturbance as possible. This impression is strengthened by the manner in which the fur on the legs terminates in a sort of frill just above the little bare white paws, giving them the look of tiny feet with socks on, or of hands covered with soft gloves.
The long sweeping tail, rich in fur on the upper side, is seamed underneath with a narrow strip of skin immensely strong and thick, which gives it purchase when hanging
