level plains liable to be flooded. On dry land its habits are similar to
those of a weasel; in lagoons, where it dives and swims with great ease,
it constructs a globular nest suspended from the rushes. The fur is
soft, of a rich yellow, reddish above, and on the sides and under
surfaces varying in some parts to orange, in others exhibiting beautiful
copper and terra-cotta tints. These lovely tints and the metallic lustre
soon fade from the fur, otherwise this animal would be much sought after
in the interests of those who love to decorate themselves with the
spoils of beautiful dead animals--beast and bird. The other opossum is
the black and white Didelphys azarae; and it is indeed strange to find
this animal on the pampas, although its presence there is not so
mysterious as that of the tuco-tuco. It shuffles along slowly and
awkwardly on the ground, but is a great traveller nevertheless. Tschudi
met it mountaineering on the Andes at an enormous altitude, and, true to
its lawless nature, it confronted me in Patagonia, where the books say
no marsupial dwells. In every way it is adapted to an arboreal life, yet
it is everywhere found on the level country, far removed from the
conditions which one would imagine to be necessary to its existence. For
how many thousands of years has this marsupial been a dweller on the
plain, all its best faculties unexercised, its beautiful grasping hands
pressed to the ground, and its prehensile tail dragged like an idle rope
behind it! Yet, if one is brought to a tree, it will take to it as
readily as a duck to water, or an armadillo to earth, climbing up the
trunk and about the branches with a monkey-like agility. How reluctant
Nature seems in some cases to undo her own work! How long she will
allow a specialized organ, with the correlated instinct, to rest without
use, yet ready to flash forth on the instant, bright and keen-edged, as
in the ancient days of strife, ages past, before peace came to dwell on
earth!