Opossums are amazingly prolific, and have broods of a dozen or more in many cases. These often crawl on the mother's back, and cling with claws and twisted tails to her fur and tail, and so are carried about. Burdened by these kittens she hunts daily—or rather at night, for the most part—and defends them savagely and bravely against foxes and other enemies, often successfully standing off the farmer's dogs. With a family to defend, or when faced by any foe that is at all equal to its powers, the opossum does not resort to "playing 'possum," for this is a last resource when surprised and "cornered" by an overwhelming danger that it can neither avoid nor cope with.
The proverbial feigning of death by this animal (many other small animals do the same) has excited much popular interest, and has received many explanations. I have suggested that it is a survival of a practice which in past ages had been an advantageous ruse of the ancestors of the opossums.
Several other species of opossums exist in Central and South America, some much smaller than ours and one hardly bigger than a mouse. One kind, the "yapock," is aquatic, dwelling on land only during the infancy of its progeny, and until they are old enough to be taught to swim. All the marsupials inhabiting the Americas (except a rare little molelike one in Patagonia), belong in the family Didelphidæ; but this family is not known in Australia, where the so-called "opossums" belong to a different tribe. They were named after our common northern opossum, which was known to science before Australia and its pouched fauna were discovered.
One of the extraordinary things in zoölogy is that Australia, and the near-by islands that constitute with it a faunistic province, has no indigenous mammals (except a few mice and bats) other than marsupials, which have become so diversified as to represent the varied kinds of animals seen elsewhere; and no marsupials live anywhere else in the world except our single and primitive American family. This curious situation has caused much discussion. It is known that in late Mesozoic times marsupials were scattered all over the globe, but became exterminated everywhere outside of Australasia and America long before the present era. The Australian marsupials are supposed to be the survivors, flourishing in a favorable region; but why no other mammals survived there is still a puzzle. Another theory is that Australia, regarded as formerly a part of a much larger southern continent, is the original center from which the ancestors of the Marsupialia spread, but failed to maintain their race outside of their original home, with which South America was then connected.
The most archaic of these marsupials is the celebrated Tasmanian "wolf," or thylacine, which resembles in size and shape a pointer dog, but with a longer muzzle, and that long tail which seems to be a general characteristic of the Marsupialia. It is brownish gray, with a row of darker bands crossing the hinder half of the back, and is one of the most swift-footed and savage hunters in the world. It is confined to Tasmania, where it became so destructive to sheep when the island was settled that it was killed off until almost exterminated. This island was the home, also, of another smaller beast, looking somewhat like a wolverine with the head of a hyena, which was so morose, savage, and untamable that the settlers named it "Tasmanian devil," and destroyed it as rapidly as they could. It hid by day in some rock den and made its forays at night. This truly diabolic creature belonged to the family of dasyures, which is represented in Australia by several small, predatory beasts called "native cats." They fill the rôle there of our northern martens and weasels, and most of their time is passed in trees, although some are fond of hunting amid rocks and brush. They like to come about ranches and villages, where they are the pest of poultry keepers, but are rarely domesticated, even partly. Another carnivorous group (phascogales) contains the "pouched mice," which are not mouselike, except in size, but have more the nature of shrews that live in trees and hunt birds and any small creatures they can catch.
Of the phalangers a curious specimen is the wombat, named "native bear" by the early colonists—an animal about the size of our woodchuck, shaped like a miniature bear, and living mainly on roots, which it digs at night with its powerful claws; its thick fur makes its skin valuable in market. Related to it structurally, but much like our gray squirrel in shape, and having an even longer and more bushy tail, is the charming sugar squirrel, which dwells in trees, and sails in long flights from tree to tree in the twilights and on moonlight nights just as do our flying squirrels; there are also tree phalangers so small they are called "flying mice." Other tree-living phalangers are the "opossums" of Australia, whose soft gray pelts are exported in great numbers to foreign fur markets.
| A KANGAROO MOTHER |
| Showing young carried in the abdominal pouch |
The kangaroos and wallabies (Macropodidæ) represent the highest development of the marsupial type, and number some fifty species spread over all Australia and New Guinea. While the majority inhabit open grassy plains, others brushy districts and rocks, and a few dwell in trees, the kangaroos proper include half a dozen of the largest kinds, the commonest of which is the great gray "boomer" or "forester," of the colonists, often seen in menageries. It stands four to five feet tall, with a tail thirty to thirty-six inches long; but this size is considerably exceeded by that of the red or woolly kangaroo, of eastern and southern Australia. Furthermore, fossil remains show that in the Pleistocene era kangaroos far bigger than even these existed there in numerous extinct species—one, for instance, whose skull alone measured nearly a yard in length. These animals take the place in Australia of the deer of northern countries. They are very gregarious, and are always to be met with in droves. Each drove frequents a certain district and has its particular camping and feeding grounds. The animal has a dreadful weapon of defense in the powerful hind claw, which it can use like the tusk of a boar.