File:Birds and nature (1901) (14568987610).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature91901chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ofthe original secondary quadrupeds,stranded for centuries on a Southernisland, and still keeping up among Aus-tralian forests the antique type of life thatwent out of fashion elsewhere a vast num-ber of years ago. Hence they have brainsof poor quality, a fact amply demon-strated by the kangaroo when onewatches his behavior in the zoologicalgardens. Every high-school graduate is wellaware that the opossum, though it is amarsupial, differs in psychological devel-opment from the kangaroo and the wom-bat. The opossum is active and hig-hlyintelligent. He knows his way about theworld in which he lives. A possum up agum tree is accepted by observantminds as the very incarnation of animalcunning and duplicity. In negro folk-lore the resourceful possum takes theplace of the fox in European stories; heis the Macchiavelli of wild beasts; thereis no ruse on earth of which he is notamply capable; and no wily manoeuvreexists which he cannot carry to an endsuccessfully. All guile and intrigue, the
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u OSDC possum can circumvent even UncleRemus himself by his crafty diplomacy.And what is it that makes all the differ-ence between this cute marsupial and hisbackward Australian cousins? It is thepossession of a prehensile hand and tail.Therein lies the whole secret. The opos-sums hind foot has a genuine apposablethumb; and he also uses his tail in climb-ing as a supernumerary hand, almost asmuch as do any of the monkeys. Heoften suspends himself by it, like an ac-robat, swings his body to and fro to ob-tain speed, then lets go suddenly, andflies away to a distant branch, which heclutches by means of his hand-like hindfoot. If the toes make a mistake, he canrecover his position by the use of his pre-hensile tail. The result is that the opos-sum, being able to form for himself clearand accurate conceptions of the realshapes and relations of things by thesetwo distinct grasping organs, has ac-quired an unusual amount of general in-telligence. And further, in the keen com-petition for li

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