The next group of the marsupial animals is found, not in Australia, but in America.
There are several different kinds of opossums, most of which live in the trees. They are excellent climbers, for they not only have their hind feet made more like hands, with a thumb-like great toe which enables them to grasp the branches, but are also the possessors of long prehensile tails, like those of the spider-monkeys. So powerful is the tail of an opossum that it can bear the entire weight of the body as the animal swings from a branch to pluck fruit which would otherwise be out of its reach.
But opossums do not feed upon fruit alone. Indeed, there are very few things which they will not eat. They are very fond of maize, or Indian corn, for example, obtaining it sometimes by climbing up the stems of the plants, and sometimes by cutting them down close to the ground. Nuts, too, they devour in great quantities, together with acorns and berries. Sometimes they dig up roots out of the ground. Then they will search for birds' nests, and carry off the eggs or the unfledged little ones. They will pounce upon a rabbit, too, or a young squirrel, and do not disdain mice, or lizards, or frogs, or even insects. And the farmer has very good cause for disliking them, for they not only get into his fields and steal his grain, but find their way into his hen-roosts and carry off the eggs and the young chickens.
But then they are very easily caught, for they are attracted by any kind of bait, and will walk into the simplest of traps. Yet in some ways they are exceedingly cunning. If they are caught, for example, and are injured in even the slightest degree, they will pretend to be dead, and will allow themselves to be pulled about, or kicked, or beaten, without showing any sign of life. Then the moment they think that no one is looking at them they will rise to their feet and quietly slink away. From this we get the proverb "playing possum."
During the daytime the opossum is usually fast asleep in its nest, which is sometimes made by itself, and sometimes is the deserted home of a squirrel. So it has to be hunted by night.
A moonlight night is always chosen for this purpose, and the animal is first of all driven into a tree by dogs. One of the hunters then climbs the tree and shakes it down from the branch to which it is clinging, and the moment it reaches the ground it is pounced upon and destroyed by the dogs.