Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/204

 a concrete floor and corrugated iron sides without a door; in fact, his pen resembled those in which pigs are incarcerated for life at Las Palmas, except that it was quite clean. He seemed not unfriendly in a molluscous way; he lifted his flat head to take grass from our hands, and his odd bristly fur felt like the spines of a porcupine to the touch.

But the most engaging denizens of the garden were the little opossums. The opossum bears a rough sort of resemblance to a squirrel with a long prehensile tail, and, like squirrels, lives in trees. When we went to look at them only the little pink inside of an ear was showing through the open door of their hutch. Then one brown eye appeared, a little hand-like claw was cautiously advanced towards the biscuit held out to it, a bushy whisker emerged, and slowly the whole opossum came into the open. They are most charming little things, very gentle and well-mannered; they gingerly hold your hand in their tiny white claws while they delicately nibble at your biscuit, and if they inadvertently bite your finger by mistake they immediately draw back with an air of distressed apology. Little Australian animals have an exquisite urbanity that makes them the most endearing acquaintances.