Page:General Zoology vol. 1 pt. 2.djvu/322

 closing the pouch so strongly as to make it extremely difficult to open it by the hand; nor will any torture compel the animal to loosen it. This power of strongly closing the pouch is performed by certain bones and muscles which Nature had provided for that purpose. These were observed and described by the celebrated Cowper, in the last century, as also by Dr. Tyson. The female, when ready to produce her young, is said to make herself a nest of dry grass, in some bush, near the root of a tree.

A variety of this species is sometimes seen, in which the back is of a deep brown. This is the Didelphis Molucca of Gmelin’s edition of the Systema Naturæ of Linnæus.

MOLUCCA OPOSSUM.


 * Didelphis Marsupialis. D. fusca, cauda nuda.
 * Brown O. with naked tail.
 * D. mammis octo intra abdomen. Lin. Syst. Nat. Gmel. p. 105.
 * Philander Amboinensis atro-spadiceus in dorso, in ventre ex albido cinereo-flavicans, maculis supra oculos obscure fuscis. Briss. Quadr. 201.
 * Philander Orientalis foem. Seb. mus. 1. p. 61. t. 38. f. 1.
 * Molucca Opossum. Pennant Quadr. 2. p. 20.
 * Sarigue, ou l’Opossum. Buff. 10. p. 279. pl. 45, 46.

which is a larger species than the former, seems to have been first described and figured by Seba, in his work intituled Thesaurus Rerum Naturalium. It is of a thinner or more slender 