Sumichrast led the way through the forest, where we were sheltered under the tall trees. After a somewhat long ramble, during which we met with nothing but magpies, I requested l'Encuerado to guide us back to our bivouac. All of a sudden my friend enjoined silence; an opossum, followed by five young ones, was coming near us on our left. The animal indolently approached a tree of middling size, which it climbed, aided by its prehensile tail. Its progeny crowded busily round the foot of the tree, uttering plaintive cries. The opossum then came down again, and scarcely had it put foot to the ground before its disconsolate family rushed pell-mell into the maternal pouch. Thus loaded, the animal climbed the tree more slowly, and sat herself quietly on one of the lowest branches. We could see nothing but the pointed muzzles and black eyes of the little ones, which seemed as if they were looking down from the top of a balcony. One of them at last ventured to emerge, and crawled along the branches; soon the whole litter followed this example. Sumichrast advised Lucien to clap his hands, and I ordered l'Encuerado not to fire at the poor animal. Frightened at the noise, the little ones hastened to their mother, who set up her thin ears and showed us a double row of white teeth. One of the stupid little things, in its haste to reach its asylum, fell down from the tree. In a moment the opossum had jumped down close to it, and turned towards us her threatening jaws; then, finding all her treasure complete, she disappeared among the brush-wood. "Why didn't you let me shoot at the _tlacuache_?" asked l'Encuerado. "What is the good of killing a poor creature which would be of no use to us?" "You know well enough," replied the Indian, "that this 'poor beast' finds its way into granaries; that it devours the corn and also fowls, without reckoning the damage made by them in other ways." "Yes, that's true enough; but this animal, at least, is innocent of all these misdeeds, for it lives too far from any town." This scene had quite delighted Lucien. I acquainted him with the fact that opossums, kangaroos, and several other animals of the kind, the females of which are provided with a pouch to shelter the young ones, are, for this reason, called _marsupials_. The opossum is very common in Mexico. Its long, pointed, and deeply-divided muzzle is armed with fifty-two formidable teeth, although the animal feeds principally on eggs, insects, and birds. The young of those species which are unprovided with the pouch, as soon as they are able to walk, climb up on their mother's back and intertwine their tails with hers, which she carries over her back for this purpose. This instinct is perhaps more curious than that which leads them to dart into their mother's protecting pouch. Time was getting on; it now became important for us to reach the spot where the moles were; and l'Encuerado predicted good sport there without firing off his gun. [Illustration]