no doubt he regained his freedom with a sigh. It is
highly probable that, if a trap is set in his way again, he will put his
foot in it as innocently as before.

[Illustration: OPOSSUM]

One day in March one of my neighbors brought to me a handful of young
possums, very young, sixteen of them, like newly born mice. The mother
had been picked up dead on the railroad, killed, as so often happens to
coons, foxes, muskrats, and woodchucks, by the night express. The young
were in her pouch, each clinging to its teat, dead. The young are
carried and nursed by the mothers in this curious pocket till they are
four or five weeks old, or of the size of large mice. After this she
frequently carries them about, clinging to various parts of her body,
some with their tails wound around hers.

The next winter, two or more possums and a skunk took up their quarters
under my study floor. It was not altogether a happy family. Just what
their disagreements were about, I do not know, but the skunk evidently
tried to roast the possums out. The possums stood it better than I
could. I came heartily to wish they were all roasted out. I was
beginning to devise ways and means, when I think the skunk took himself
off. After that, my only annoyance was from the quarreling of the
possums among themselves, and their ceaseless fussing around under
there, both day and night. At times they made sounds as if they were
scratching matches on the under side of the floor: then they seemed to
be remaking or shifting their beds from one side to the other. Sometimes
I think they snored in their sleep. One night, as I was going from the
house to the study, I heard a rustling in the dry leaves and grass,
beside the path. Lighting a match, I approached the spot, and found one
of the possums just setting out on his night's excursions. I stooped
down and stroked his head and scratched his back, but he did not move;
he only opened his mouth a little and looked silly.

XIII

WILD MICE

One of the prettiest and most abundant of our native mice is the deer
mouse, also called the white-footed mouse; a very beautiful creature,
nocturnal in his habits, with large ears, and large, fine eyes full of a
wild, harmless look. He is daintily marked, with white feet and a white
belly. When disturbed by day he is very easily captured, having none of
the cunning or viciousness of the common Old World mouse. He is found in
both fields and woods.

It is he who, high