Okay. He is a bit startling, but this preserved opossum at the Trailside Museum commanded full attention the day I did the Poetry and Wildflowers walk at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. (Hey, as a nocturnal creature, daytime is not his best time.) Back in 1610, promotional literature for the Jamestown, Virginia colony included the first written reference to the opossum: "There are ... Apossouns, in shape like to pigges." This was the spelling used to replicate the sound of the Virginia Algonquian word for the opossum. Historical information was found in The American Heritage Dictonary of the English Language, Third Edition.
