ORDER V.
MARSUPIALA,
POUCHED ANIMALS.
This order includes animals with a pouch under the belly, where the young are in some cases produced and nursed.
THE OPOSSUM.
This curious animal belongs exclusively to America, and is familiarly known in the milder parts of the United States. It is about the size of a cat, but its legs are short, and its body broad and flat. The females are remarkable for having an abdominal pouch, to which the young ones retreat in time of danger. The hunting of this animal is the favorite sport in some of the Middle States. Parties go out in the moonlight evenings of autumn, attended by dogs. These trace the opossum to some tree, between the branches of which he hides himself from the view of the hunter. The latter shakes him down, and the quadruped, rolling himself into a ball, pretends to be dead. If not immediately seized, he uncoils himself, and attempts to steal away. The various artifices it adopts for escape have given rise to the proverb of "playing 'possum."
THE KANGAROO.
The following description of this animal, which is peculiar to New Holland, is taken from Dawson's "Present State of Australia:"—