The Opossum of the Future

ONE day an Opossum who had gone to sleep hanging from the highest
branch of a tree by the tail, awoke and saw a large Snake wound
about the limb, between him and the trunk of the tree.

  "If I hold on," he said to himself, "I shall be swallowed; if I let
go I shall break my neck."

  But suddenly he bethought himself to dissemble.

  "My perfected friend," he said, "my parental¹ instinct recognises in
you a noble evidence and illustration of the theory of development. 
You are the Opossum of the Future, the ultimate Fittest Survivor² of
our species, the ripe result of progressive prehensility³ - all
tail!"

  But the Snake, proud of his ancient eminence⁴ in Scriptural history,
was strictly⁵ orthodox, and did not accept the scientific view.