The opossum is a marsupial—that is, its young are brought forth in a very rudimentary condition, and are carried by the mother in a special pouch, which is provided with teats. When newly born they are little blind (?), naked creatures, not half as long as one’s little finger. The mother takes the little one in her lips and places it in the pouch with its mouth to a teat, and in this position it is carried for about four months. For the next two months it rides on the mother’s back, until it is able to look after itself. It leaves its mother when about six months old, and is then nearly half-grown. The opossum has only one young one once a year. (On the other hand, the true American opossum produces as many as a dozen at a time.) When fully grown the opossum is about 18 in. long. It has a thick, bushy tail, about 11 in. long, the end of which is blackish in colour. From this thick tail these animals are sometimes known in Australia as “brush-tailed opossums.” The legs are short and strong, and each foot is furnished with five fingers or toes. The bodies are covered with close, thick, woolly fur. In the first-named species the upper part of the body is a grizzled-grey colour, with the chin blackish, a rusty patch on the chest, and the rest of the under-surface whitish or yellowish. In the sooty opossum the fur is of a dark brownish-black colour. Otherwise the two species are very like one another. The head is small and somewhat fox-like, with rather short ears.
These animals live in trees, taking shelter in holes during the day, and sometimes they make a kind of rough nest at the bottom of the hole. The trees which they frequent are often marked by the tracks scored on the trunk by the sharp claws of the animals as they climb. They ascend the trees in a succession of jerks or short jumps, stretching out their feet and claws as far as possible on each side, and rarely losing their hold. In descending a tree they always come down head first.
In Australia opossums feed on the leaves of various species of Eucalyptus (or gum) trees, taking to other food only when these are scarce owing to clearing of the bush. In New Zealand they feed on whatever the bush supplies them with, chiefly leaves and shoots. Mr. F. Hunt, of Round Hill, says of them, “The food the opossum lives on is chiefly leaves of broadleaf, kamahi, broad-gum (Panax), and mapau (Pittosporum), rata-blossoms, supplejack-berries, berries of fuchsia and makomako, and practically all the seeds and blossoms that grow in this part of the bush. The opossum is not a grass-eating animal. It will eat white or red clover, sweetbrier shoots and seeds, but if an opossum is caged and fed on grass it will die of starvation. Also, if it were fed on turnips it would take as much to feed twelve opossums as one sheep would eat. When I and my brother were catching opossums for the Southland Acclimatization Society we fed them on carrots, boiled wheat, bread, boiled tea-leaves with sugar, and anything sweet. The damage the opossums would do running at large would be very little, seeing that they never come on to open country. The animal is blamed for barking apple-trees; but the opossum does not bark a tree. It might scratch the bark with its teeth, but it does not strip it off.”
Colonel Boscawen, of Auckland, who is a most reliable authority, tells me that as long as there is plenty of green stuff available opossums do not interfere with fruit, but that the damage they are often charged with is the work of rats—presumably black rats. On the other hand, at Kawau, Motutapu, Hawera, and other places they are stated to be destructive in orchards, eating the shoots of apple and plum trees in the spring-time and the fruit in the autumn.
The number of opossums in this country now is enormous. In 1912 it was estimated that over sixty thousand skins were taken in the Catlin’s district alone. Some acclimatization societies try to protect these animals, while fruitgrowers seek to destroy them. The law is rather complex on the subject, and few laymen know whether or not it is legal to destroy them. Meanwhile a large number are killed annually; but their skins are often declared as rabbit-skins, though, as a matter of fact, they are worth four or five times as much.
CHAPTER III.
UNGULATA—WILD PIGS.
Most people think they know all about pigs, and hardly associate them with wild life in New Zealand. They usually consider them the dirtiest creatures on earth, and yet, with remarkable inconsistency, they eat ham and bacon without inquiring too particularly how the animals producing them were reared or fed. The pig is naturally one of the cleanest animals and most particular feeders known, and it is only the filthy way in which most people keep them which is responsible for their popular reputation.