A greyhound must push to overtake a rabbit, but I have run down a possum with my winter boots on in less than half-way across a clean ten-acre field. He ambles along like a bear, swinging his head from side to side to see how fast you are gaining upon him. When you come up and touch him with your foot, over he goes, grunting and grinning with his mouth wide open. If you nudge him further, or bark, he will die – but he will come to life again when you turn your back.
Some scientifically minded people believe that this "playing possum" follows as a physiological effect of fear; that is, they say the pulse slackens, the temperature falls, and, as a result, instead of a pretense of being dead, the poor possum actually swoons.
A physiologist in his laboratory, with stethoscope, sphygmoscope, thermometer, and pneumonometer, may be able to scare a possum into a fit – I should say he might; but I doubt if a plain naturalist in the woods, with only his two eyes, a jack-knife, and a bit of string, was ever able to make the possum do more than "play possum."
We will try to believe with the laboratory investigator that the possum does genuinely faint. However, it will not be rank heresy to run over this leaf from my diary. It records a faithful diagnosis of the case as I observed it. The statement does not claim to be scientific; I mean that there were no 'meters or 'scopes of any kind used. It is simply what I saw and have seen a hundred times. Here is the entry:
I have known the possum too long for a ready faith in his extreme nervousness, too long to believe him so hysterical that the least surprise can frighten him into fits. He has a reasonable fear of dogs; no fear at all of cats; and will take his chances any night with a coon for the possession of a hollow log. He will live in the same burrow with other possums, with owls, – with anything in fact, – and overlook any bearable imposition; he will run away from everything, venture anywhere, and manage to escape from the most impossible situations. Is this an epileptic, an unstrung, flighty creature? Possibly; but look at him. He rolls in fat; and how long has obesity been the peculiar accompaniment of nervousness?
It is the amazing coolness of the possum, however, that most completely disposes of the scientist's pathetic tale of unsteady nerves. A creature that will deliberately walk into a trap, spring it, eat the bait, then calmly lie down and sleep until the trapper comes, has no nerves. I used to catch a possum, now and then, in the box-traps set for rabbits. It is a delicate task to take a rabbit from such a trap; for, give him a crack of chance and away he bolts to freedom. Open the lid carefully when there is a possum inside, and you will find the old fellow curled up with a sweet smile of peace on his face, fast asleep. Shake the trap, and he rouses yawningly, with a mildly injured air, offended at your rudeness, and wanting to know why you should wake an innocent possum from so safe and comfortable a bed. He blinks at you inquiringly and says: "Please, sir, if you will be so kind as to shut the door and go away, I will finish my nap." And while he is saying it, before your very eyes, off to sleep he goes.
Is this nervousness? What, then, is it – stupidity or insolence?
Physically as well as psychologically the possums are out of the ordinary. As every one knows, they are marsupials; that is, they have a pouch or pocket on the abdomen in which they carry the young. Into this pocket the young are transferred as soon as they are born, and were it not for this strange half-way house along the journey of their development they would perish.
At birth a possum is little more than formed – the least mature babe among all of our mammals. It is only half an inch long, blind, deaf, naked, and so weak and helpless as to be unable to open its mouth or even cry. Such babies are rare. The smallest young mice you ever saw are as large as possums at their birth. They weigh only about four grains, the largest of them, and are so very tiny that the mother has to fasten each to a teat and force the milk down each wee throat – for they cannot even swallow.
They live in this cradle for about five weeks, by which time they can creep out and climb over their mother. They are then about the size of full-grown mice, and the dearest of wood babies. They have sharp pink noses, snapping black eyes, gray fur, and the longest, barest tails. I think that the most interesting picture I ever saw in the woods was an old mother possum with eleven little ones clinging to her. She was standing off a dog as I came up, and every one of the eleven was peeking out, immensely enjoying this first adventure. The quizzing snouts of six were poked out in a bunch from the cradle-pouch, while the other five mites were upon their mother's back, where they had been playing Jack-and-the-beanstalk up and down her tail.
Historically, also, the possum is a conundrum. He has not a single relative on this continent, except those on exhibition in zoölogical gardens. He left kith and kin behind in Australia when he came over to our country. How he got here, and when, we do not know. Clouds hang heavy over the voyages of all the discoverers of America. The possum was one of the first to find us, and when did he land, I wonder? How long before Columbus, and Leif, son of Eric?
In his appetite the possum is no way peculiar, except, perhaps, that he takes the seasons' menus entire. Between persimmon-times he eats all sorts of animal food, and is a much better hunter than we usually give him credit for. Considering his slowness, too, he manages to plod over an amazing amount of territory in the course of his evening rambles. He starts out at dusk, and wanders around all night, planning his hunt so as to get back to his lair by dawn. Sometimes at daybreak he is a long way from home. Not being able to see well in the light, and rather than run into needless danger, he then crawls into the nearest hole or under the first rail-pile he comes to; or else he climbs a tree, and, wrapping his tail about a limb, settles himself comfortably in a forked branch quite out of sight, and sleeps till darkness comes again.
On these expeditions he picks up frogs, fish, eggs, birds, mice, corn, and in winter a chicken here and there.
In the edge of a piece of woods along the Cohansey there used to stand a large hen-coop surrounded by a ten-foot fence of wire netting. One winter several chickens were missing here, and though rats and other prowlers about the pen were caught, still the chickens continued to disappear.
One morning a possum was seen to descend the wire fence and enter the coop through the small square door used by the fowls. We ran in; but there was no possum to be found. We thought we had searched everywhere until, finally, one of us lifted the lids off a rusty old stove that had been used to heat the coop the winter before, and there was the possum, with two companions, snug and warm, in a nest of feathers on the grate.
Here were the remains of the lost chickens. These sly thieves had camped in this stove ever since autumn, crawling in and out through the stovepipe hole. During the day they slept quietly; and at night, when the chickens were at roost, the old rascals would slip out, grab the nearest one, pull it into the stove, and feast.
Is there anything on record in the way of audacity better than that?
BIRDS' WINTER BEDS
A storm had been raging from the northeast all day. Toward evening the wind strengthened to a gale, and the fine, icy snow swirled and drifted over the frozen fields.
I lay a long time listening to the wild symphony of the winds, thankful for the roof over my head, and wondering how the hungry, homeless creatures out of doors would pass the night. Where do the birds sleep such nights as this? Where in this bitter cold, this darkness and storm, will they make their beds? The lark that broke from the snow at my feet as I crossed the pasture this afternoon —
What comes o' thee?
Whar wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,
An' close thy e'e?
The storm grew fiercer; the wind roared through the big pines by the side of the house and swept hoarsely on across the fields; the pines shivered and groaned, and their long limbs scraped over the shingles above me as if feeling with frozen fingers for a way in; the windows rattled, the cracks and corners of the old farm-house shrieked, and a long, thin line of snow sifted in from beneath the window across the garret floor. I fancied these sounds of the storm were the voices of freezing birds, crying to be taken in from the cold. Once I thought I heard a thud against the window, a sound heavier than the rattle of the snow. Something seemed to be beating at the glass.