The Opossum

A new track has appeared upon the snow in my neighborhood here on the

Hudson within the past few years. It is a strange track, and suggests

some small, deformed human hand. If the dwarfs or brownies we read of in

childhood were to walk abroad in winter, they might leave such an

imprint behind them as this.



This track, which we seldom see later than December, is made by the

opossum. This animal is evidentl multiplying in the land, and is

extending its range northward. Ten years ago they were rarely found

here, and now they are very common. I hear that they are very abundant

and troublesome on parts of Long Island. The hind foot of the opossum

has a sort of thumb that opposes the other toes, and it is the imprint

of this member that looks so strange. The under side of the foot is as

naked as the human hand, and this adds to the novel look of the track in

the snow.



Late in the fall, my hired man set a trap in a hole in hopes of catching

a skunk, but instead he caught a possum by one of its fore feet. The

poor thing was badly crippled, and he kept it in a barrel for a couple

of weeks and fed it, to try and make amends for the injury he had done.

Then he gave it its freedom, though the injured foot had healed but

little.



Soon after he set his trap in the same hole, and to his annoyance caught

the possum again, this time by one of the hind feet. He brought the

quiet, uncomplaining creature to me by its prehensile tail, and asked me

what should be done with or for it. I concluded to make a hospital for

it in one corner of my study. I made it a nest behind a pile of

magazines, and fed and nursed it for several weeks. It never made a

sound, or showed the least uneasiness or sign of suffering, that I was

aware of, in all that time. By day it slept curled up in its nest. If

disturbed, it did not "play possum," that is, did not feign sleep or

death, but opened its mouth and grinned up at you in a sort of comical,

idiotic way. At night it hobbled about the study, and ate the meat and

cake I had placed for it. Sometimes by day it would come out of the

corner and eat food under the lounge, eating very much after the manner

of a pig, though not so greedily. Indeed, all its motions were very

slow, like those of the skunk.



The skin of the opossum is said to be so fetid that a dog will not touch

it. A dog is always suspicious of an animal that shows no fear and makes

no attempt to get out of his way. This fetidness of the opossum is not

apparent to my sense.



After a while my patient began to be troublesome by climbing upon the

book-shelves and inspecting the books, so I concluded to discharge him

from the hospital. One night I carried him to the open door by his tail,

put him down upon the door-sill, and told him to go forth. He hesitated,

looked back into the warm room, then out into the winter night, then

thought of his maimed feet, and of traps in holes where unsuspecting

possums live, and could not reach a decision. "Come," I said, "I have

done all I can for you; go forth and shift for yourself." Slowly, like a

very old man, he climbed down out of the door and disappeared in the

darkness. I have no doubt he regained his freedom with a sigh. It is

highly probable that, if a trap is set in his way again, he will put his

foot in it as innocently as before.



One day in March one of my neighbors brought to me a handful of young

possums, very young, sixteen of them, like newly born mice. The mother

had been picked up dead on the railroad, killed, as so often happens to

coons, foxes, muskrats, and woodchucks, by the night express. The young

were in her pouch, each clinging to its teat, dead. The young are

carried and nursed by the mothers in this curious pocket till they are

four or five weeks old, or of the size of large mice. After this she

frequently carries them about, clinging to various parts of her body,

some with their tails wound around hers.



The next winter, two or more possums and a skunk took up their quarters

under my study floor. It was not altogether a happy family. Just what

their disagreements were about, I do not know, but the skunk evidently

tried to roast the possums out. The possums stood it better than I

could. I came heartily to wish they were all roasted out. I was

beginning to devise ways and means, when I think the skunk took himself

off. After that, my only annoyance was from the quarreling of the

possums among themselves, and their ceaseless fussing around under

there, both day and night. At times they made sounds as if they were

scratching matches on the under side of the floor: then they seemed to

be remaking or shifting their beds from one side to the other. Sometimes

I think they snored in their sleep. One night, as I was going from the

house to the study, I heard a rustling in the dry leaves and grass,

beside the path. Lighting a match, I approached the spot, and found one

of the possums just setting out on his night's excursions. I stooped

down and stroked his head and scratched his back, but he did not move;

he only opened his mouth a little and looked silly.