ing
amply on the fruits, beech-nuts, and wild berries, of which it is
especially fond, it is very fat.

The female opossum builds a warm nest of dry leaves and moss, sometimes
in the hollow of a rotten tree, or beneath its wide-spreading roots.
She has been known occasionally to take possession of a squirrel's nest;
and at other times, that of the Florida rat. When her young--generally
thirteen to fifteen appearing at a time--are born, they are extremely
small--not an inch in length, including the tail--and weighing only four
grains. After a couple of weeks or so, she places them in her pouch,
when they grow in size and strength, and in about four weeks may be seen
with their heads poked out surveying the world, into which they begin to
wander at the end of five or six weeks. When first-born, they are the
most helpless of little creatures, being both deaf and blind.

The larger number of opossums, however, are to be found in South
America, where we shall have an opportunity of further examining them.

PART ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE FEATHERED TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA.

THE BALD OR WHITE-HEADED EAGLE.

The white-headed eagle takes precedence among the feathered tribes of
America,--because he stands first in natural order, and has been
selected by the people of the United States as their heraldic emblem.
Their choice was, by-the-by, objected to by Benjamin Franklin, on the
plea "that it is a bird of bad moral character, and does not get his
living honestly." There was justice in the remark, for the bald eagle
is a determined robber, and a perfect tyrant. He is, however, a
magnificent bird, when seen with wings expanded, nearly eight feet from
tip to tip--and a body three and a half feet in length--his snowy-white
head and neck shining in the sun, and his large, hooked, yellow beak
open as he espies, afar off, the fish-hawk emerging from the ocean with
his struggling prey. Downward he pounces with rapid flight. The
fish-hawk sees his enemy approaching, and attempts to escape; but, laden
with the fish he has just captured, in spite of the various evolutions
he performs, he is soon overtaken by the savage freebooter. With a
scream of despair he drops the fish.

The eagle poises himself for a moment, as if to take more certain aim,
then, descending like a whirlwind, snatches it ere it reaches the water.

The plumage of the bald eagle is of a chocolate-brown, inclining to
black along the back, while the bill