A Midnight Visitor

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 148, 18 March 1939, Page 7 (Supplement)

A Midnight Visitor

DEAR Leaguers,— 1 had a midnight visitor the other night, and you will never guess what it was! I awakened to hear a bumping and thumping on my balcony, and there, sitting on the rad, silhouetted against the myriad twinkling lights of the city beyond, was an opossum! He sat very still, even when I switched on my light, and for a few moments his frightened beady eyes stared at me; then I saw his long tad switch and he scampered off along the railing and back again, tumped down to the poo! of light on the balcony, and then scrambled away over the side of the house. 1 watched, and spied him running down the white path in the moonlight, and then he was gone. I might have thought it was all a dream, for 'possums are strange visitors in a city, but next morning there was a halfcaten pear down the path and the fig tree had been raided! How many of you have seen these little thieves who work in the night, plundering in fruit trees and gardens'!' kou may hear a scrambling among the leaves of a fruit tree as you pass by it at night, and if you watch closely you may see a 'possum swing across a moonlit branch, suspended by his tong, curling tail, and zvith an apple, a pear or a peach cupped bctwecn his petzvs. Opossums, or “ ’possums" as we have come io know them, are cousins of the kangaroo. But Mr. Possum might just as zvell be related to many other animals for. though he has a kangaroo pouch, he does not jump, or even walk, very well. 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 a long tail which he uses like a monkey’s for climbing and swinging. So altogether he is a queer fellow! In the daytime, 'possums sleep in the hollows of trees, or, more often in New Zealand, in burrows. At night they prowl for fruit, berries, leaves, and occasionally small birds, and even insects are caught and eaten. Like cousin kangaroo, opossums carry their young about in a pouch; when the babies are as big as mice they like to ride on their parents’ backs, sitting in a row and clinging fast, with their tails wrapped tightly round their parent’s. So if you should watch very closely next time you hear a noise in the fruit trees at night, you may see the ’possum family out on the plunder—but you will have to look ever so closely, for their greyish fur is tipped with brown, and it is not easy to see them in a tree. Perhaps some members could tell us more about these !/• . curious little chaps. TA Cheerio!