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.

The 'possum is a night prowler. On still, bright, moonlight nights whole 'possum families are out in the fields, woods and swamps hunting for berries, nuts, grain and roots. They eat insects, field mice, little squirrels and birds' eggs, too. But, best of all, they love the sweet, frost-wrinkled fruit of the persimmon tree. This weakness for persimmons often gets the little family in trouble. Sometimes they are caught in a tree by hunters with dogs

Usually they get away in safety. On an alarm—just a rustle in the grass, the distant bark of a dog, or the smell of a man or gunpowder, the babies pop into their mama's pocket. The whole family scampers back to the home tree, and slips, in two packages, into the grass-lined nest in the hollow trunk.

Really, that nursery pouch idea is so clever, that one wonders why only the kangaroo and his little American cousin, the opossum, are provided with them. See Color Plate, Australian Animals, Vol. I; Kangaroo, page 988, Vol. II; Opossum, page 1387; Nature Study With the Camera, with illustrations, page 1309, Vol. III.