"Opossum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the large trees are hollow, by being rotten in the heart, the opossum, kangaroo rat, squirrel, and various other animals which inhabit the woods, when they are pursued, commonly run into the hollow of a tree: in order, therefore, to make sure of them, which they seldom ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... louse inhabiting the euphorbia, "trebles the length of her body, prolonging its hinder part into a pouch, comparable to that of the opossum, into which the eggs are dropped, and in which the young are hatched, to leave it afterwards ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... word are used signifying "male" and "female" respectively. Wille bidyur, a buck opossum; wille gunal, a doe opossum. Ngurun burramai, hen emu; ngurun bidyur, a ...
— The Wiradyuri and Other Languages of New South Wales • Robert Hamilton Mathews
... and the opossum that have been already mentioned, and a kind of pole-cat, there are wolves upon this part of the coast, if we were not deceived by the tracks upon the ground, and several species of serpents; some of the serpents are venomous, and some harmless: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... afforded the Kecoughtan Indians a rich hunting-ground. Midst tall pines, oak, walnut, cedar, wild cherry, locust, swamp willow, holly, myrtle and persimmon, entangled with grape vines, reaching the tops of trees, and Virginia creeper, game found a haven. Deer, bears, rabbits, squirrel, opossum, raccoon, foxes, weasels, mink, otter and muskrat were sheltered in the thickets and adjacent swamps, while wild ducks and geese made of the marshes, bordering the waterways, a rendezvous for days and weeks on their flights southward. The Bay at hand, and its estuaries, abounded ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... the curiosities in camp are two young coons and a pet opossum. The latter is the property of Augustus Caesar, the esquire of Adjutant Wilson. Caesar restrains the opossum with a string, and looks forward with great pleasure to the time when he will be fat enough to eat. The coons are just now playing on the wild cherry tree in front of my tent, and several ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... was right in concluding from the likeness of the hoof-prints which he observed to be a horse's that the creature which made them had a tail like that of a horse, Cuvier, seeing that the teeth and jaw of his fossil were just like those of an opossum, had the same right to conclude that the pelvis would also be like an opossum's; and so strong was his conviction that this retrospective prophecy, about an animal which he had never seen before, and which had been dead and buried ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... adversaries, and having long necks, they thrust their sharp beaks like javelins. When threatened by hawks, they squat closely to the earth, and present their beaks somewhat as the French soldiers did their bayonets when assailed by the terrible Mamelukes in Egypt. One night lately an opossum thought to make a meal of them, but they defended themselves with such vigor that the robber scampered off just as my father appeared to ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fish-gig) and came readily to us. For what reason I know not (for we appeared without any marks of distinction) he addressed himself first to me, and taking from his forehead a small net which their women weave from the fur of the opossum he bound it round mine. In my turn I took out my pocket handkerchief and bound it round his head which pleased him very much, and we became from the moment the best of friends. I invited him on board the ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... tracks are so plentiful, we should have seen none since we left King's Creek. I observed that the natives here climb trees as those on the Murray do, in search of some animal corresponding in habits to the opossum, which they get out of the hollow branches in a similar manner. I have not yet been able to ascertain what ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... insectivorous, and are therefore armed with powerful canines, and with molars like those of the hedgehog. Others are herbivorous, like hares, and have almost the jaws of a rodent. Among the former we have the opossum, celebrated by Florian in one of his prettiest fables. The opossum inhabits South America. Charming little marsupials are to be found in the Molucca Isles, whence come the nutmeg and the clove; these are very like our squirrels, and live as they do, in trees, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... fitfully, as it broke through swift flying clouds. In the uncertain light, Dot could see a little creature near them, and knew at once that it was an Opossum. ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... any depth with a pocket-knife: so loose, indeed, is it, that one almost feels alarmed lest it should fall while he is scratching at its base. In a small orifice or chamber of the pillar I discovered an opossum asleep, the first I had seen in this part of the country. We turned our backs upon this peculiar monument, and left it in its loneliness and its grandeur—"clothed in white sandstone, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... animals like those of other parts of the world, except the dog and the bat; but only one of these pouched animals—the Opossum of America—is not found there. This creature is very like a monkey, and the one best known in the southern states of America is about the size of a cat, and very mischievous—as it sleeps during the day and prowls about at night, in search of birds, eggs, and fruit. It has the power, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... influenced our language, literature, and customs. Five and twenty of our states, and hundreds of counties, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, and bays, bear names derived from Indian languages. Chipmunk and coyote, moose, opossum, raccoon, skunk, woodchuck, tarpon, are all of Indian origin. We still use such expressions as Indian summer, Indian file, Indian corn; bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe of peace. To the Indians we owe the canoe, the snowshoe, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... attachment to the mother after birth which characterizes the Kangaroo. In New Holland almost all the Mammalia are pouched, and have also the imperfect organization of the brain, as compared with the other Mammalia, which accompanies that peculiar structural feature; and although the American Opossum makes an exception to the rule, it is nevertheless true that this type of the Animal Kingdom is now confined almost exclusively to New Holland. Whether this living picture of old creations in modern garb ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... or "penis-concealers," only used by the males at corrobborees and other public rejoicings, are either formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string. The koom-pa-ra, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in close proximity to white settlements. (W. Roth, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shuffling across, an opossum, or a snake going to the lake. Now are you frightened so ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... length of his arms and legs were out of all proportion to his small trunk and head. His complexion was very swarthy, and Mr. Gentry says that his skin was shrivelled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches, linsey woolsey shirt, and a cap made of the skin of an opossum or a coon. The breeches clung close to his thighs and legs, but parted by a large space to meet the tops of his shoes. Twelve inches remained uncovered, and exposed that much of shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow." At a subsequent period, when charged by a ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... 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, ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... for Lord Lovelace came himself between eleven and twelve at night with a ticket, which he gave me, at Lady Byron's request. You may guess how happy I was to have the third ticket for Honora, and we were all full dressed, punctual to the minute, in Fanny's carriage, and with my new-dressed opossum cloak covering our knees, as warm ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... greater than yesterday which very much interrupted our wooding and watering. Nelson today picked up a male opossum that had been recently killed, or had died, for we could not perceive any wound unless it had received a blow on the back where there was a bare place about the size of a shilling. It measured fourteen inches from the ears to the beginning of the tail which was exactly ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... leaves, already beginning to dry, rustled against one another. The sound was pleasant and soothing. He and Harry Kenton and other lads of their age had often heard it on autumn nights, when they roamed through the forests around Pendleton in search of the raccoon and the opossum. It all came back to him with ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... heron, owl, rail, eel, cuttlefish; in Asia, lion, elephant, bear, horse, bull, dog, pig, eagle, tiger, water wagtail, whale; in Europe, bear, wolf, horse, bull, goat, swan; in America, whale, bear, wolf, fox, coyote, hare, opossum, deer, monkey, tiger, beaver, turtle, eagle, raven, various fishes. The snake seems to have been generally revered, though it was sometimes regarded as hostile.[450] Since animals are largely valued as food, changes in the animals specially ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Latinitate mea putes, dicas; facias ut opossum illum nostrum volantem vel (ut tu malis) quendam Piscem errabundum, a me salvum et pulcherrimum esse jubeas. Valeant uxor tua cum Hartleiio nostro. Soror mea salva est et ego: vos et ipsa salvere jubet. Ulterius progrediri [? progredi] non liquet: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... grows mellow and will cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it, making the bones very clean then anoint them with the ingredients aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth artificially woven of opossum's hair. The bones they carefully preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By these means they preserve them for many ages that you may see an Indian in possession of the bones of his grandfather or some of his relations of a longer antiquity. They have other ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... they bear a decided resemblance to the negroes of Guinea. In regard to dress their habits are certainly primitive. A single ratskin often forms the entire wardrobe of a native chief, and a tomahawk with a brace of spears pointed with iron-wood or flint his adornments. Opossum-skins tied together form a sort of cloak used as a protection against the cold, but if on the chase the wearer finds his upper garment oppressively warm, he tosses it away, and trusts to finding or stealing another when he needs it. Their dwellings are wretched little huts, or rather sheds, composed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... straightened, 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 ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... "it should belong to the family of rodentes, or gnawers; by its legs, to the jumpers; and by its pouch, to the opossum tribe." ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... That blooms on the lea, Likewise the opossum That sits on a tree, But when you come across 'em, They cannot compare With those who are treading The dance at a wedding, While people are spreading The ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... four-post bedstead down among them with hideous roar 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 ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... stair cupboard door to catch the opossum, you found a white china doll lying in it, no bigger than your finger. That ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... same county; and was remarkable even in infancy for enterprise, boldness, and discretion. When only eight years of age he habitually went out, in the dead of night, alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon and opossum, which, seeking their food in the night, can then only be taken. In this exercise, no season or circumstance could obstruct his purpose—plunging through the winter's snows and frozen streams in pursuit of his object. At thirteen he was put ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... scampered past it. A long snake, roused from its stony winter lair, writhed eerily up the slope, heedless of its fellow travelers' existence. A raccoon was breasting the steep, from another angle. And behind it came clawing a round-paunched opossum; grinning from the pain of sparks that were stinging it to ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... settlement had now been established within a month of ten years, yet little had been added to the stock of natural history which had been acquired in the first year or two of its infancy. The Kangaroo, the Dog, the Opossum, the Flying Squirrel, the Kangaroo Rat, a spotted Rat, the common Rat, and the large Fox-bat (if entitled to a place in this society), made up the whole catalogue of animals that were known at this time, with the exception which must now be made of an amphibious animal, of the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... 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 ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... to share 400lbs. Extra in consequence of the poisoning of the three already lost. Whilst waiting for and expecting their arrival every hour, the different members of the party amused themselves as best they might by fishing, opossum, sugar-bag hunting, and nonda gathering. The monotony of the camp was also broken by a little grumbling, consequent on an order from the Leader against the opening of the next week's ration bag. The party had, during the ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... for, Bess? It wasn't your fault, child; it was mine altogether. Oh, you funny little opossum, mop your eyes ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... States the lowest or most primitive mammal is the Opossum. The baby Opossums—from six to a dozen of them—are born when very small and undeveloped and are immediately placed by the mother in an external pouch, where they continue to grow until they are too large to get into ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... (between the young men and women) had healed, a young man and a young woman might meet, and he, looking at her, would say, for instance, 'Djiitgun! [170] What does the Djiitgun eat?' The reply would be 'She eats kangaroo, opossum,' or some other game. This constituted a formal offer and acceptance, and would be followed by the elopement of the couple as described in the chapter on Marriage." [171] There is no statement that the question about eating refers to the totem, but ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... animals which live in the forest and its outskirts towards the savannahs! There is the singular opossum, and there is the sluggish, scaly armadillo, which loves the detestable termites—those white ants which, with their sharp mandibles, gnaw to pieces paper, clothes, wood, the whole house in fact. Then there is the climbing sloth, with its round monkey head and large curved claws. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... do,' he said, and went hurriedly into his own room which opened a few doors down on to the veranda, and coming back with an opossum rug on his arm and a glass of brandy and water in his hand, he made her drink the spirits and wrapped the rug round her. Presently ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... on the Taku forts began with the removal of the iron stakes forming the outer barrier by the steamer "Opossum," and this part of the operations was performed without a shot being fired. When, however, the eleven ships forming the English fleet reached the inner boom all the Chinese forts and batteries began to fire with an accuracy which showed that the guns ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Mother opossum says she'd like to ask Just why other mothers should find it a task To care for one baby. Why, here she has four, And there's plenty of room on her ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... numberless new experiences. She got accustomed to seeing the boys climb big trees by cutting steps in the bark with a tomahawk, going out on the most giddy heights after birds' nests, or dragging the opossum from his sleeping-place in a hollow limb. She learned to hold a frenzied fox-terrier at the mouth of a hollow log, ready to pounce on the kangaroo-rat which had taken refuge there, and which flashed out as if shot from a catapult on being poked from the other ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson |
