"Opossum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to the Indian's poultry, while the opossum, the guana and salempenta afford him ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... attention was again called to the opposite steep, by the most unwelcome object that, at this time, could possibly occur. Something was perceived moving among the bushes and rocks, which, for a time, I hoped was no more than a raccoon or opossum, but which presently appeared to be a panther. His gray coat, extended claws, fiery eyes, and a cry which he at that moment uttered, and which, by its resemblance to the human voice, is peculiarly terrific, denoted him to be the most ferocious and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... 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 bad ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... and ruin; and had to be picked up and called to order by their elders. Next, the wind, which ranged freely through the open roof, blew my bedclothes off. Then the dogs exploded outside, probably at some henroost-robbing opossum, and had a chevy through the cocos till they tree'd their game, and bayed it to their hearts' content. Then something else exploded—and I do not deny it set me more aghast than I had been for many a day— exploded, I say, under the window, with a shriek of Hut-hut-tut-tut, hut-tut, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Marsupialia,[153] is furnished with a pouch, into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... inferred that they 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 ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... wonderful change has taken place. The obscure early types have disappeared, and we discover in their place a whole series of forms belonging to existing orders, and even sometimes to existing families. Thus, in the Eocene we have remains of the opossum family; bats apparently belonging to living genera; rodents allied to the South American cavies and to dormice and squirrels; hoofed animals belonging to the odd-toed and even-toed groups; and ancestral forms ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... day, selecting the 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 sisters caught sight of him they were startled, ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... most frequently seen in the woods where there is no longer any large game are the chipmunk, the red, the gray, and the black squirrel, the rabbit and hare, the fox, weasel, pine-marten, woodchuck, raccoon, opossum, and skunk, also the pack-rat (of the west), the white-footed and field mouse. In deeper and wilder forests there are deer and porcupine, though deer are found quite near habitations at times. In more remote places there are the moose and caribou; the bear, mountain-lion, lynx or wildcat, and the ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... 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, one would ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... are found in the forests and mountains of Grenada. The agouti, the armadillo, and the opossum, are sometimes, though rarely, seen. The only quadruped I ever met with in my rambles was an opossum, which I shot as it was climbing a tree. Of reptiles there are none in the mountains. There are several kinds of snakes ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... 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 dodge a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... characteristic of that southern continent, and have since become extinct."[42] The rise of the Mexican table-land split up the New World into two well-defined zoological provinces. A few species, as the puma, peccari, and opossum, have crossed the barrier; but South America is characterized by possessing a family of monkeys, the llama, tapir, many peculiar rodents, and several genera ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... good: none stirs none tries to get more room for himself at his neighbours' expense. What are they doing there, so quietly? They allow themselves to be carted about, like the young of the Opossum. Whether she sit in long meditation at the bottom of her den, or come to the orifice, in mild weather, to bask in the sun, the Lycosa never throws off her great-coat of swarming youngsters until ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... side of Chesapeake. In their travels they saw, besides the Indians, all manner of four-footed Virginians. Bears rolled their bulk through these forests; deer went whither they would. The explorers might meet foxes and catamounts, otter, beaver and marten, raccoon and opossum, wolf and Indian dog. Winged Virginians made the forests vocal. The owl hooted at night, and the whippoorwill called in the twilight. The streams were filled with fish. Coming to the mouth of the Rappahannock, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... course of his astonishing career had consumed many strange things—who found shark's flesh "good entertainment," and roast opossum "sweet wholesome meat"—toleration in the matter of things edible was carried to the point of latitudinarianism. We never find Dampier squeamish about anything which anybody else could eat with relish. To him, naturally, the first taste of breadfruit ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... bee-hive is a school, which he permits coyote to keep. In another (ibid., 206) rabbit pretends that a wasp-nest is a cradle, and gets coyote to rock it. The third is a Cora story given in abstract by Dr. Boas (ibid., 260), which is nearest the form of the incident as found in our tales. Opossum pretends that the bee-hive is a bell which coyote is to ring when he hears the sky-rockets. In a New-Mexican Spanish story (JAFL 27 : 134-135) fox tells coyote that the bee-hive is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... leaves of a tree, of Vaturana; or udolu, all, of the Fiji Islands. And two curious phrases for 1000 are those of the Banks' Islands, tar mataqelaqela, eye blind thousand, i.e. many beyond count; and of Malanta, warehune huto, opossum's hairs, or ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... likewise captured an Australian opossum, a female, with two young ones. This class of animal was formerly supposed to be peculiar to America, from whence its name is derived. Being nocturnal in their habits, nothing is to be seen of them in the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... had not ascertained, or to be content until he had found a scientific explanation of it. He found that in the branchial openings of the fish, there occur bags or pouches, on the same principle as the pouch of the opossum, where the young may be lodged for a time for protection or nourishment, and that when the creatures are discharged through the mouth into the water, it is only from a temporary cradle where they were probably enjoying repose, beyond ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Spanish 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 said the Givers, "Inasmuch as ye cannot ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... 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 ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... have long existed in the interior, as appears from their remains. Both they and the wild dog have probably descended from animals cast ashore by shipwreck. The indigenous tribes are those of the kangaroo, the opossum, and the lizard. It is curious to observe how the distinguishing features of the first are manifested in a great variety of animals, of all sizes from the kangaroo downwards — the long hind, and short fore legs, the three toes on the former, the rat-like-head, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... 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 ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... regulation forbids the use of the more enviable articles of diet, like fish, eggs, the emu, and the choicer sorts of opossum and kangaroo ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... go shuffling across, an opossum, or a snake going to the lake. Now are you frightened so that ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... little marsupial, which might be called the opossum of Martinique: it fights, although overmatched, with the serpent, and is a great enemy to the field-rat. In the market a manicou sells for two francs and a half at cheapest: it is generally salted before ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... joyful! Have given up all meat diet. Have given up beef, pork, lamb, mutton, veal, chicken, pigs' feet, bacon, hash, corned beef, venison, bear steak, frogs' legs, opossum, and fried snails. Weigh only nine hundred and forty pounds. Affectionate ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... busy day at Cartwright, and the little porch was filled with loungers. Old Jim Hunter was there with his long-barrelled rifle and a snarling opossum, the tail of which was held between the prongs of a split stick. When the animal showed a disposition to bite anybody, or crawl away, he subdued it instantly by turning the stick and twisting its tail. Joe Longfield had come with a basket of eggs packed in cotton-seed to exchange ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... peculiar to the Southern States, and eat, with an appetite menacing to the provisioning of Florida, the food that would be repugnant to a European stomach, such as fricasseed frogs, monkey-flesh, fish-chowder, underdone opossum, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne |
