Having in my former “Sketches” alluded to the common opossums, which are alike denizens of New South Wales and Tasmania, I need not minutely describe them again, but must beg to point out what seems to me a lamentable error in the account given of their habits in a recent and generally very interesting work, of which only a few of the earlier numbers have reached us. They are there described as “sluggish and stupid!” Perhaps I ought, in the first place, to acknowledge my own former ignorance in calling them “opossums” at all, seeing that the zoologically learned have demonstrated them to be “Phalangers,” as I learn from the work in question; but it is so hard to know a thing suddenly by a new name, whilst every day brings the familiar use of the old one, by which the creatures are known here, that I fear it will be long ere I learn to adopt readily the new and proper appellation of my old favourites.

And now as to their sluggishness and stupidity. That a poor imprisoned animal, shut up in a small box or cage, fed on unwholesome and unnatural food, and removed to an ungenial climate, where it is never permitted to enjoy the free use of its limbs, may seem stupid, is very possible, especially if only observed in the daytime.