her; and whereas the little leg that I had seen at first was as bare of covering as is a new-born rat or rabbit, its whole little person was now dressed in a beautiful fur coat. I put mother and child into the carpet-bag, and for nearly two days Possie never left it, seeming meanwhile scarcely to care for eating or drinking, and giving a little low hiss if I touched her.
After a time she came out to be fed as usual, but returned quickly to the bag without loitering over her meals, showing no desire to leave the little one, for whose sake she even abandoned her nightly "constitutional." When we had at length succeeded in decoying both of them out of the carpet-bag, Possie judged it expedient to change the scene by a removal to the hole in the roof; performing the journey thither as usual by means of the bamboo, up which she made a dash with an air of vast importance, the young one being seated on her back, and its tail lashed tight round her body. It was very pretty to see the two at feeding-time, sitting side by side, and eating like squirrels, the young one snatching the mother's portion from her paws, and the theft amiably submitted to. People came to look at the pair as at a most unusual sight, and old colonists told me that they had never before heard of an opossum breeding in captivity; but it would have been nearer to the truth to compare Possie's position rather to that of a highly-favoured prisoner on parole.
By the time that her fur had grown quite shabby with the effects of the long-continued game of pickaback up and down the bamboo, she appeared to think it fitting to introduce her daughter into society; accordingly the two
