"Opossum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand while he cuts another hole three feet further up to receive the other foot; and thus he proceeds till he reaches the top. The dead trees of Australia, which are all hollow, are a favourite resort of the opossum. In search of them, the black-fellow will ascend a tree in the manner just described; and there he will sit while his companions below dig under the roots, and light a fire, the smoke from which ascending the trunk of ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... very old, because if they did they could have no children. For the same reason they must not eat the pancreas. The women who fear lest they may have difficulty in giving birth to a child make soup of an opossum and eat it. Girls must not touch deer antlers, or ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of the fever when he caught a touch of rheumatism; and the stalwart young fellow limped along by Robinson's side, and instead of his distancing Jacky as he used in better days, Jacky rattled on ahead and having got on the trail of an opossum announced his intention of hunting it down and then following the human trail. "Me catch you before the sun go, and bring opossum—then we eat a good deal." And off glided ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year; or rather, but only just at one season of the year. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... open plains, apparently near the river. The eldest of our guides ran after them, and I requested him to assure them that the white men would do no harm, and to tell them not to run away. At length he overtook them. Two appeared to carry unseemly loads across their backs, dangling under large opossum-skin cloaks, and it was evident that these were mummied bodies. I had heard of such a custom, but had not before seen it. I had then but a distant view of these females, as they resumed their flight, and continued it until they reached woods bounding ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... like those of other parts of the world, except the dog and the bat; but only one of these pouched animals—the Opossum of America—is not found there. This creature is very like a monkey, and the one best known in the southern states of America is about the size of a cat, and very mischievous—as it sleeps during the day and prowls about ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... The negro is not denied the use of an axe, and no man knows better how to handle it than he. The 'coon, therefore, is his natural game, and much sport does he have in its pursuit. Nearly the same may be said of the opossum (Didelphis Virginiana); but the "'possum" is more rare, and it is not our intention now to describe that very curious creature. From both 'coon and 'possum does the poor negro derive infinite sport—many a sweet excitement that cheers his long winter nights, and chequers with brighter ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Tennessee. The hills abounded in metals of all sorts, iron in all its combinations, copper, bismuth, gold and silver in small quantities, platinum he—believed, tin, aluminium; it was covered with forests and strange plants; in the woods were found the coon, the opossum, the fox, the deer and many other animals who roamed in the domain of natural history; coal existed in enormous quantity and no doubt oil; it was such a place for the practice of agricultural experiments that any student who had been successful ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Queensland "phallocrypts," or "penis-concealers," only used by the males at corrobborees and other public rejoicings, are either formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string. The koom-pa-ra, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in close ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... babies, and utensils. At evening they camp and the men put up frail break-winds, consisting of a few branches and leafy tufts; behind this on the sheltered side a few leaves made a bed. Meantime the fire was lit close by, and soon a dozen little columns of blue smoke curl up among the trees. The opossum, or duck, or wallaby is soon cooked or half-cooked; the men devour as much as they want and pass on the remains to the women and children. A frog or two and a lizard, or a few grubs taken out of decayed timber, or perhaps a few roots that have been dug up on the march by the women, ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... Every cabin has its hen-house, from which an abundant supply of eggs is drawn, which find a ready sale at the plantation store; and in spring the chickens are a source of considerable income to the negroes. Their fare is occasionally varied by an opossum caught in the woods, or a hare trapped in the fields; but they much prefer corn bread and bacon as regular fare to anything else. They dislike wheat bread, as too light and unsatisfying, and they always grumble when flour is measured out to them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the arm of man are similar to the hand and arm of the ape. We find the same plan in the forefoot of the rat, the elephant, the horse and the opossum. We can identify the same parts in the forefoot of the lizard, the frog (fig. 3), and even, though less certainly, in the pectoral fins of fishes. Comparison does not end here. We find similarities in the skull and back bones of these same animals; in the brain; in the ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it, making the bones very clean then anoint them with the ingredients aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth artificially woven of opossum's hair. The bones they carefully preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By these means they preserve them for many ages that you may see an Indian in possession of the bones of his grandfather or ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... refer to the instinctive habit, letisimulation (letum, death, and simulare, to feign). The word "instinctive" must not be used, however, when this stratagem is to be observed in the higher animals other than the opossum; for many of these animals sometimes make an occasional and a rational use of it, as I will endeavor to ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... joined the Papuans in their sports and games. On one of these occasions I came across a curious animal that bore a striking resemblance to a kangaroo, and yet was not more than two feet high. It could climb trees like an opossum and was of the marsupial family. The pigeons, too, which were very plentiful in these parts, were as large as a big fowl. The headman, or chief, took quite an interest in me, and never seemed tired ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... marsupials, except the opossum, are confined to Australia, and the oviparous mammals, or monotremes, to New Zealand. Formerly the marsupials, at least, ranged all over Europe and Asia, for we have indisputable evidence in their fossil remains. But they have survived only ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... Lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird; and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do those of a Dog and a Bird; or of a Dog and an Opossum; or even than those of a Dog ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... these bats were so numerous, and in such large clusters, that I secured no less than eleven at one time, by using both hands. Small kangaroos appeared to be plentiful enough, but we were not so fortunate as to shoot one. The natives one day brought down to us a live opossum, quite tame, and very gentle; this turned out to be new, and has since been described by Mr. Gould under ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... how to treat a lady?" It might have been a question which of the cronies that crouched over green wood fires in the cabins of Wildcat Hollow, eternally sucking a corncob pipe and stirring the endless kettles of stewing coon and opossum, had taught him to do even as well as ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... only one case of a known economic cause for totemism—an Australian case where two totem kins are said to have been so called "from having in former times principally subsisted on a small fish and a very small opossum;"[359] but on the other hand it does supply a vera causa, the actual evidence for which may well have passed away with the development of totemism, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... curiosities in camp are two young coons and a pet opossum. The latter is the property of Augustus Caesar, the esquire of Adjutant Wilson. Caesar restrains the opossum with a string, and looks forward with great pleasure to the time when he will be fat enough to eat. The coons are just now playing on the wild cherry tree ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... of the larger animals in these excursions. We never saw a mammal of any kind on the campos; but tracks of three species were seen occasionally besides those of the jaguar; these belonged to a small tiger cat, a deer, and an opossum, all of which animals must have been very rare, and probably nocturnal in their habits, with the exception of the deer. I saw in the woods, on one occasion, a small flock of monkeys, and once had an opportunity of watching the movements of a sloth. The latter was of the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... even by those who were unacquainted with the animal. Even the otter, which propels itself through the water mostly by means of its long and powerful tail, has the feet furnished with webs. So has the aquatic Yapock opossum of Australia, while the feet of the duck-bill are even more boldly webbed than those of the bird from which it takes its popular name. The water-shrews (whom we shall presently meet) are furnished with a fringe of stiff hair round the toes which answers the same ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... Kamilaroi tribe of N.S. Wales, with two phratries, four classes and various totem kins. The phratries are named Dilbi and Kupathin; Dilbi is divided into two classes, Muri and Kubi; Kupathin into Kumbo and Ipai. The Dilbi totems, which may belong to either of the classes, are kangaroo, opossum and iguana; those of Kupathin are emu, bandicoot and black snake. Every member of the tribe has his own phratry, class and totem; these all ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... the hot weather we keep our doors open at night, and one night a little opossum got in, and in the morning we found it curled up in papa's hat. I kept it for a few days, but once when I went away it ran off. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "it should belong to the family of rodentes, or gnawers; by its legs, to the jumpers; and by its pouch, to the opossum tribe." ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... His complexion was very swarthy, and Mr. Gentry says that his skin was shrivelled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches, linsey woolsey shirt, and a cap made of the skin of an opossum or a coon. The breeches clung close to his thighs and legs, but parted by a large space to meet the tops of his shoes. Twelve inches remained uncovered, and exposed that much of shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow." At a subsequent period, when charged by a Democratic rival with being "a ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... The opossum (for it was no other than an old she 'possum), now turned upon her tail; and, seizing the head of the hare in her hog-like jaws, killed it at a single "cranch." She then released it from the coil; and, laying it out upon the grass, would have ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... ape; what else? A poor devil of a monkey, that you could knock over with a bit of a stick; as easily as you could kill an opossum. Ah, hombre! the voice of the great Tlaloc is more terrible than that. But see! what ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... what, then," said Michael. "I'll make a clean breast of it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... n. a chip-monk Ahkuckoojeesh, n. a ground-hog Ahdoomahkoomasheeh, n. a monkey, which signifies louse catcher or hunter Ahnemoosh, n. a dog Aasebun, n. a raccoon Aayabegoo, n. an ant Aayanee, n. opossum Ahzhahwahmaig, n. a salmon Ahshegun, n. rock-bass Ahgwahdahsheh, n. sun-fish Ahwahsesee, n. cat-fish Ahmahkahkee, n. a toad Ahgoonaqua, n. tree-toad Ahndaig, n. a raven Ahshahgeh, n. a crane Ahsegenak, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... had already to share 400lbs. Extra in consequence of the poisoning of the three already lost. Whilst waiting for and expecting their arrival every hour, the different members of the party amused themselves as best they might by fishing, opossum, sugar-bag hunting, and nonda gathering. The monotony of the camp was also broken by a little grumbling, consequent on an order from the Leader against the opening of the next week's ration bag. The party had, during the halt consumed a week's rations a day and ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... rock-mountain sheep, with his cousin, the goat; Then the sociable marmot, and tiny shrew mouse, The raccoon and agouti from hollow-tree house. Chinchilla the soft, musk and Canada rats, Hounds, mastiffs, wolves, foxes, and wild tiger cats; Jerboa just roused from his long winter nap, Opossum, with four little babes in her lap. The morse, seal, and otter—amphibious group! And of bisons (the humpbacked) there came a whole troop. It seems that the elk out of pride staid away, Having just shed his horns, which he does about May. The fallow ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... said Adrian. "Only she never told me about the son. I had it all about the witch-doctor whose devil came out because he couldn't fancy the little scorpion's flavour. And all about the original devil—a sort of opossum they ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... mostly," said Jack, "and Joe killed a fat opossum with a club, and we caught some fish in a net which I knotted from a ball of marline that was in the boat. And we foraged for ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Cat. Opossum. Skunk Alligator. Rattle Snake. Green Snake Pelican. Wood Stock Flying Squirrel. Roseate Spoonbill. Snowy Heron White Ibis. Tobacco Worm. Cock Roach Cat Fish. Gar Fish. Spoonbill Catfish Indian Buffalo Hunt on Foot Dance of the Natchez Indians Burial of the Stung Serpent ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... of shocks slowly fell as the huskers worked their way over the brow of the hill, whence the ground sloped down into a broad belt of shade, cast by the woods in the bottom. Two or three dogs which had accompanied their masters coursed about the field, or darted into the woods in search of an opossum-trail. Joe and Jake Fairthorn would gladly have followed them, but were afraid of venturing into the mysterious gloom; so they amused themselves with putting on the coats which the men had thrown aside, and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... Tippengray. Without any adequate reason whatever, there came before him the vision of an opossum which he once had seen served at a Virginia dinner-table, plump and white, upon a china dish. And he felt almost irresistibly impelled to lean forward and ask Mr. Lodloe if he had ever read any of the works of Mr. Jonathan Carver, that noted American traveler of the last century; but ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... at the bottom, proceeded to cast a burden from his breast—first, a stone which he had been saving for an opossum, a rawhide thong, a newspaper which had done duty over and over, and which he kept in hope that it might yield up some further bit of news, and finally, the rabbit, all of which he dropped on the ground beside his hat; and then, getting down on his knees, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... sluggish creature looking like a small bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig's head and snout; the native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and the black swan and the opossum. Of these the wild turkey affords the best fun. You have to stalk them in a buggy, and drive in a gradually narrowing circle round them till you get within shot. The opossum you shoot by moonlight, getting them between your gun and ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... and the opossum that have been already mentioned, and a kind of pole-cat, there are wolves upon this part of the coast, if we were not deceived by the tracks upon the ground, and several species of serpents; some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Lyra Tyrian Stanmer Plover Renard Seagull Nautilus Swallow Brisei Cockatrice Scorpion Goldfinch Reindeer Hornet Espoir Mutine Nightingale Camden Pike Lapwing Skylark Duke of York Sheldrake Pigeon Spey Lady Mary Pelham Opossum Pandora ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... camps the night of May 31-June 1 on Opossum Creek just west of Friends Grove S.H. (A-7) in hostile territory. The regiment is part of a brigade, the remainder of the brigade being in camp one day's ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... past it. A long snake, roused from its stony winter lair, writhed eerily up the slope, heedless of its fellow travelers' existence. A raccoon was breasting the steep, from another angle. And behind it came clawing a round-paunched opossum; grinning from the pain of sparks that were stinging it to ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... hunting-ground. Midst tall pines, oak, walnut, cedar, wild cherry, locust, swamp willow, holly, myrtle and persimmon, entangled with grape vines, reaching the tops of trees, and Virginia creeper, game found a haven. Deer, bears, rabbits, squirrel, opossum, raccoon, foxes, weasels, mink, otter and muskrat were sheltered in the thickets and adjacent swamps, while wild ducks and geese made of the marshes, bordering the waterways, a rendezvous for days and weeks on their flights southward. The Bay at hand, and its estuaries, abounded in trout, hogfish, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... heart was straightened, stretched, and corded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into the angle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long and gangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum feigning death. Only his watery blue eyes wandered—not for curiosity, but that he might see and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... before breakfast this morning. Uhlans wear baggy sky-blue breeches. Give 'em sky-blue fits! BOURBAKI dined with me yesterday. American fare. Gopher soup; rattlesnake hash; squirrel saute; fricasseed opossum; pumpkin pie. That's your sort! Blue coat and brass buttons. White Marseilles waistcoat. France saved by Marseilles waistcoat. Organize earthquake to swallow London. JOHN BULL trembles. Tours trembles. Italy trembles. Leaning tower of Pisa changes base and slopes other way. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... Wild Bears Quickly Recognize Protection Alaskan Brown Bear, "Ivan," Begging for Food The Mystery of Death The Steady-Nerved and Courageous Mountain Goat Fortress of an Arizona Pack-Rat Wild Chipmunks Respond to Man's Protection An Opossum Feigning Death Migration of the Golden Plover. (Map) Remarkable Village Nests of the Sociable Weaver Bird Spotted Bower-Bird, at Work on Its Unfinished Bower Hawk-Proof Nest of a Cactus Wren A Peace Conference With an Arizona Rattlesnake Work Elephant Dragging ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... the embryos of a snake and of a lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a snake and of a bird; and the embryos of a dog and of a cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do those of a dog and a bird; or of a dog and an opossum; or even than those of a ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... she refused to fly away, and I had to lift her repeatedly from the eggs that I might take the picture. As sometimes happens, the negative was a failure; and returning the next week to try for better luck, I found safely curled up within the cavity an opossum. The eggs and mother bird were not in evidence, and the "possum" told no tales. Similar experiences have often occurred to me when I have returned for better views or to follow up a certain line ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... however, differ in being sharpened at one end only. The other, though reduced by fracture to the same general form, is left rough, in which state it is fixed into a cleft stick, which serves as a handle. To this it is firmly bound by thin straps of opossum's hide. One of these tools, now in my possession, was given me by Mr. Farquharson of Haughton, who saw a native using it in 1854 on the Auburn river, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... once moved on and, after travelling four miles in a south-east direction over good land, we reached a valley, the largest and best I had yet seen, containing trees and birds such as we had not before met with; kangaroos were more plentiful, and, for the first time, we saw the opossum. The valley was more than a mile in width at the point where we first made it, and we had but just time to cross it and to gain the partial shelter of some rocks when heavy rain again set in. We could keep no fire and, being soon wet through, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... mountainous parts; but they have few peculiarities of character. The swift-footed roe of the Cordillera roams here and dwells in the thickets, avoiding the warm forest. The dark brown coati (Nasua montana, Tsch.) howls, and digs at the roots of trees in search of food; the shy opossum crawls fearfully under the foliage; the lazy armadillo creeps into his hole; but the ounce and the lion seldom stray hither to contest with the black bear (Ursus frugilegus, Tsch.) the possession of his territory. The little hairy tapir (Tapirus villosus, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... handled, and being handled became familiar. But this came about chiefly because there was a hand to handle with; without the hand there would be no handling, and no method of holding and examining is comparable to the human hand. The tail of an opossum is a prehensile thing, but it is too far from his eyes; the elephant's trunk is better, and it is probably to their trunks that the elephants owe their sagacity. It is here that the bee, in spite of her wings, has failed. She has a high civilisation, but it is one whose equilibrium appears ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... found in Ohio. The most notable is that known as "Great Serpent Mound," in Adams County. It is the largest and most distinct of this class of mounds in the United States if not in the whole world. Other important Ohio points are the Eagle Mound at Newark and the Alligator or Opossum Mound at Granville. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... cried the black; and he shook the objects on his spear, which proved to be a couple of opossum-like animals evidently freshly killed, and then held out his ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... prized possessions of the tribe. The immediate neighbourhood of any one of these sacred store-houses is a kind of haven of refuge for wild animals, for once they have run thither, they are safe; no hunter would spear a kangaroo or opossum which cowered on the ground at one of these hallowed spots. The very plants which grow there are sacred and may not be plucked or broken or interfered with in any way. Similarly, an enemy who succeeds in taking refuge there, is safe from his pursuer, so long as ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... word are used signifying "male" and "female" respectively. Wille bidyur, a buck opossum; wille gunal, a doe opossum. Ngurun burramai, hen emu; ngurun ...
— The Wiradyuri and Other Languages of New South Wales • Robert Hamilton Mathews
... might go shuffling across, an opossum, or a snake going to the lake. Now are you frightened so ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... divides the great Malayan and Australian zoological provinces. The Aborigines of America range throughout the Continent; and this at first appears opposed to the above rule, for most of the productions of the Southern and Northern halves differ widely: yet some few living forms, as the opossum, range from the one into the other, as did formerly some of the gigantic Edentata. The Esquimaux, like other Arctic animals, extend round the whole polar regions. It should be observed that the amount of difference between the mammals of the several zoological ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... gift of an old nurse; and a curious old-fashioned essence bottle, with eau-de-cologne; the surrounding country had been ransacked to procure a piece of scented soap. The only thing to remind me that I was not in an English cottage was the opossum rug with which the neat little bed was covered. The sitting-room looked the picture of cosy comfort, with its well-filled book-shelves, arm-chairs, sofa with another opossum rug thrown over it, and the open fireplace filled with ferns and tufts of the white feathery Tohi ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... interpersed with many swamps or morasses which were very troublesome to pass, and many fallen trees which lay athwart the way. In their march they saw three different kinds of deer, hares, rabbits, bears, and lions[130], with other wild beasts; and among these an animal called the opossum, which carries its young in a pouch under the belly till they are able to shift for themselves. The country is cold[131], and has good pasture for cattle. In the woods and marshes through which they passed they saw many different kinds of birds, as geese, ducks, herons, partridges, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... his muton (so they named the fish-gig) and came readily to us. For what reason I know not (for we appeared without any marks of distinction) he addressed himself first to me, and taking from his forehead a small net which their women weave from the fur of the opossum he bound it round mine. In my turn I took out my pocket handkerchief and bound it round his head which pleased him very much, and we became from the moment the best of friends. I invited him on board the boat, and he readily accepted my invitation. When on board he ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... to see a literal fulfilment of the prophecy. A form of imposing stature appeared. It was that of a negro upwards of six feet in height, magnificently proportioned, straight as a pillar, and black as ebony. He wore a dress of skins, carried a gun in his hand, and had an opossum slung over ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... pick every mythologic lock, though it undoubtedly has opened many hitherto closed. The truth is that man is a finite animal; that he has a limited number of types of legend; that these legends, as long as they live and exist, are excessively prehensile; that, like the opossum, they can swing from tree to tree without falling; as one tree dies out of memory they pass on to another. When they are scared away by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Pinkney Bloom) returned to each a deed, duly placed on record, to the best lot, at the price, on hand that day. All this time the catamount screeched upon the reserved lot of the Skyland Board of Trade, the opossum swung by his tail over the site of the exposition hall, and the owl hooted a melancholy recitative to his audience of young squirrels in opera house square. Later, when the money was coming in fast, J. Pinkney caused to be erected in the coming city half a dozen cheap box houses, ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... resembling some already described. Some are both carnivorous and insectivorous, and are therefore armed with powerful canines, and with molars like those of the hedgehog. Others are herbivorous, like hares, and have almost the jaws of a rodent. Among the former we have the opossum, celebrated by Florian in one of his prettiest fables. The opossum inhabits South America. Charming little marsupials are to be found in the Molucca Isles, whence come the nutmeg and the clove; these are ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... and extent of the external adductors of the lower jaw in Thrinaxodon was secured in part from dissections of Didelphis marsupialis, the Virginia opossum. Moreover, comparison of the two genera reveals striking similarities in the shape and spatial relationships of the external adductors. These are compared below in ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... same hour, the White Hawk went back to the prairie, and took his station near the ring; in order to deceive the sisters, he assumed the form of an opossum, and sat among the grass as if he were there engaged in chewing the cud. He had not waited long when he saw the cloudy basket descend, and heard the same sweet music falling as before. He crept slowly toward the ring; but the instant the ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... received in these fights (between the young men and women) had healed, a young man and a young woman might meet, and he, looking at her, would say, for instance, 'Djiitgun! [170] What does the Djiitgun eat?' The reply would be 'She eats kangaroo, opossum,' or some other game. This constituted a formal offer and acceptance, and would be followed by the elopement of the couple as described in the chapter on Marriage." [171] There is no statement that the question about eating ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... but we must give a passing glance to some quixotic tails. The opossum scampers up a tree, carrying all her numerous family on her back, and they do not fall off because each infant is securely moored by its own tail to the uplifted tail of its mother. The opossum is a very primitive beast, and so early and useful an invention should, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... animal here described is doubtless the opossum; the only non-Australian marsupial ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... the word "crack" expresses the noise of a rifle; say "crack," and you have the very sound; say "detonation," and it gives no ear-picture at all. Such a word is "ker-chunk." Imagine a huge log of timber falling from rock to rock, or a wounded opossum out of a tree, the word expresses the sound. There are scores of such examples, and it is these pure primitive words which put so much force into the narratives of ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... critics they appeared. According to the Popol Vuh, there was in the beginning nothing but water and the feathered serpent, one of their chief divine beings; but there also existed somehow, "they that gave life". Their names mean "shooter of blow-pipe at coyote," "at opossum," and so forth. They said "Earth," and there WAS earth, and plants growing thereon. Animals followed, and the Givers of life said "Speak our names," but the animals could only cluck and croak. Then ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... a puzzle, too, Vesta. He has everything which these foresters lack,—education, society, standing, and comforts. But he returns to the forest, like an opossum, the moment your eye is off him. He can't be traced up like this man, by his hat. I think it's a shame on you, particularly. If he don't come home this day, I shall send for my brother and force an account of my property ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... possessed some unusual method of climbing, or that their stature was gigantic. In the sound, the colonist recognises the vocal cooey of the aborigines, and learns from the steps "to the birds' nests," that they then hunted the opossum, and employed that method of ascent, which, for agility and daring has never been surpassed. Thus, during more than 150 years, this country was forgotten; and such were the limits of European knowledge, when the expedition of Cook was dispatched by Great Britain to ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... long-legged VERN! with the eyes of an opossum, a common nose, healthy-looking cheeks, not very small mouth, no beard, long neck for Jack Ketch, broad shoulders, never broken down by too much work, splendid chest, long arms—the whole of your appearance makes you a lion amongst the fair sex, in spite of your ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... Sloth, a singular animal of the Opossum species, having a false belly, was found by the natives, and brought into the town alive, on the 10th of August, 1803. This is a very singular animal; for when it ascends a tree, at which it is astonishingly expert, it will never quit it until it has ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... said, and went hurriedly into his own room which opened a few doors down on to the veranda, and coming back with an opossum rug on his arm and a glass of brandy and water in his hand, he made her drink the spirits and wrapped the rug round her. Presently the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Sam found that he was not the only occupant of the fallen tree. A fine large opossum had taken refuge in one of the upper branches, and Sam used his rifle to good purpose in bringing him down. He was still suffering somewhat from the fever, though the excitement of his recent ride had done much to relieve him, as anything which ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke, who will soon proceed to Distilleryville, on the Little Buttermilk River, and take command of the Illinois Brigade at that point, reporting to you by letter for orders. Is the route from Covington by way of Bluegrass, Opossum Corners and Horsecave still infested with bushwhackers, as reported in your last dispatch? I have a plan for ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... womera, or throwing stick, as are used by those in New South Wales. In the summer months they frequent the sea-coast, where their skill in spearing fish is described as quite wonderful. In winter they mostly adhere to the woods on the higher grounds, where the kangaroos, the opossum tribe, and the land tortoises are plentiful. These, with birds and roots, constitute their sustenance. They have neither boat nor raft, nor did the party fall in with any thing resembling a hut. They made use ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... the snake and of a lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a snake and of a bird; and the embryo of a dog and of a cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do those of a dog and a bird, or a dog and an opossum, or even those of a ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... body. 'All at once the numerous heads seemed to separate from the main body, becoming little bodies of themselves, with long tails upon them, and looking just like a squad of white rats! The large body to which they had all been attached we now saw was an old female opossum, and evidently the mother of the whole troop. She was about the size of a cat, and covered with woolly hair of a light gray colour.... The little 'possums were exact pictures of their mother—all having ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... certainly saw and used it, for he elsewhere borrows the exact words of the editor. He is so careless that he steals from Membre passages which he might easily have written for himself, as, for example, a description of the opossum and another of the cougar, animals with which he was acquainted. Compare the following pages of the Nouvelle Decouverte with the corresponding pages of Le Clercq: Hennepin, 252, Le Clercq, ii. 217; H. 253, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... the new ruminants eat up their pastures, the new rodents outwit them in the modernised forests. At last the pouched creatures all disappear utterly from all the world, save only Australia, with the solitary exception of a single advanced marsupial family, the familiar opossum of plantation melodies. And the history of the opossum himself is so very singular that it almost deserves to receive the polite attention of a separate paragraph for ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... United States the lowest or most primitive mammal is the Opossum. The baby Opossums—from six to a dozen of them—are born when very small and undeveloped and are immediately placed by the mother in an external pouch, where they continue to grow until they are too large to get into their mother's pocket; then they frequently ride upon their mother's ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... "playing 'possum" on the part of our opossum, the trick would seem to be particularly inane. The truth of the matter is, what is attributed to an unusual brilliancy on the part of the creature is positively unusual witlessness. The animal has an exceedingly small brain, as compared with that of a dog of similar size, and to anyone ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... therefore invited all the animals and fowls to a banquet, and he made the order in which they partook of this repast the measure of their fatness. As fast as they arrived, he told them to plunge in. The bear came first, and was followed by the deer, opossum, and such other animals as are noted for their peculiar fatness at certain seasons. The moose and bison came tardily. The partridge looked on till the reservoir was nearly exhausted. The hare and marten came last, and these animals have ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... discovered, with very few exceptions, are all of the kangaroo or opossum tribe; having their hinder legs long, out of all proportion when compared with the length of the fore legs, and a sack under the belly of the female for the ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... or flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six; cheiroptera, or bats, three hundred and twenty-eight; quadrumana, or monkeys, two hundred and twenty-one; and marsupialia, or pouched mammals, like the opossum and kangaroo, one hundred and thirty-seven. If we leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and male and female of these, a total of three thousand ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton
... family of Meriwethers, of the same county; and was remarkable even in infancy for enterprise, boldness, and discretion. When only eight years of age he habitually went out, in the dead of night, alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon and opossum, which, seeking their food in the night, can then only be taken. In this exercise, no season or circumstance could obstruct his purpose—plunging through the winter's snows and frozen streams in pursuit of his object. At ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Opossum lives, And slumbers through the day, But when the shades of night descend, Goes forth ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... the bark of trees, and often looking backward to remember the look of the place when seen from the contrary side. Trails were easy to find on the soft ground, but besides the bear I saw none but those of squirrel and rabbit, and a rare opossum. But at last, in a marshy glen, I found the fresh slot of a great stag. For two hours and more I followed him far north along the ridge, till I came up with him in a patch of scrub oak. I had to wait long for a shot, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... you will see suspended representatives of the animal kingdom—perhaps the skin of a rabbit, a raccoon, an opossum, or the grey fox—perhaps also that of the musk-rat (Fiber zibethicus), or, rarer still, the swamp wild-cat (bay lynx—Lynx rufus). The owner of the cabin upon which hangs the lynx-skin will be the Nimrod of the hour, for the cat is among the rarest and noblest game ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... beginning to dry, rustled against one another. The sound was pleasant and soothing. He and Harry Kenton and other lads of their age had often heard it on autumn nights, when they roamed through the forests around Pendleton in search of the raccoon and the opossum. It all came back to him ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler |
