live in the bag for months, scarcely moving. The first time they come out they must climb up and tumble over the edge of the fur pocket, like little birds leaving the nest. For a long time afterwards they sleep and travel in the pouch. It is a sort of dining and sleeping car to them, and a nice place in which to play hide and seek.
There is only one other animal in the world that has a pouch just like the kangaroo's. Curiously enough this little cousin of the Australian kangaroo lives in the southern part of the United States, and doesn't look much more like him than a cow looks like a camel. He is about twenty inches long and has a body much like the body of the 'coon or little tree-bear. He lives in trees, too. Little boys— especially little colored boys—down South, often catch him when he is a baby and bring him up for a pet. He's the cunningest, brightest little fellow, with one trick that you like to copy.
Did you ever "play 'possum?" You shut your eyes and pretend you're asleep, for a joke. The opossum does this in earnest, to make an enemy think he is dead. He fools the dogs of hunters, sometimes, by rolling up into a limp ball and lying still. But a pair of bright eyes are watching out of the fur, and when the dogs are off guard, the 'possum unrolls and slips away.
The opossum doesn't jump like the kangaroo. All four of his legs are the same length, with five-clawed toes for climbing. He doesn't walk very well, and takes to a tree as quickly as possible. His dingy white or gray fur is tipped with brown all over, so it is not easy to see him in a tree. He has a long, scaly tail like a rat's, but he can use it as a monkey uses his tail for climbing and swinging. He has the sharp, pointed face of a big rat, the naked ears of a bat, the five-clawed feet of a little bear, and the pouch of the kangaroo. He makes his nest in the hollow of a tree like a bear, but he doesn't leave the babies at home. Mama 'possum carries them in her pouch when they are small. There are a baker's dozen of them—that's thirteen—and they are only half an inch long when they are born. She cares for them as the kangaroo mother cares for her babies.
When 'possum babies are big enough to come out of the bag— oh, about as big as mice—they like to ride on the roof of the car. There are so many of them that part of the family climbs on the father's back and part on the mother's. The babies sit in a row, clinging fast with their claws to the fur. The father turns his long tail over his back, clear to the head. The babies wrap the ends of their little tails around his tail, and away they all go for a stroll.
