The following is my translation of an article called: Die Aeneasratte von KF. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1921, Heft 8, Seite 222.
This particular possum possesses lots of names, but scientific and otherwise. I think the current official one is Marmosa murina. Others call it Murina mouse opossum, Didelphys murina, D. dorsigera, Merian's opossum, the aeneas rat, Timothy, and quite probably various other things. At one time, I was in contact with a field biologist studying possums in a South American rainforest, and it had been raining for several months. He was stuck in his tent cursing the damned animals, as they were persistent raiders of his precious supplies of chocolate. I'm sure he'd have called it something very rude, had it been involved in this harassment. As he in Peru, this particular critter was probably innocent.
For reasons of eye-friendliness, I've added paragraphs in line with my own judgement. The original doesn't have any. It can boast of an illustration. I'm not uploading that. However, you should find it by Googling for Didelphys dorsigera. Non-Germans may wonder about the reference to Brehm. He was something like a nineteenth century Germanic David Attenborough; a writer and lecturer on natural history for the masses. His most influential work was Brehms Tierlexikon (an animal encyclopaedia), and that's still being produced. While not always entirely reliable, it happens to be very convenient and pretty much standard issue for German speaking naturalists. The author of this article, KF, is presumably Kurt Floericke.
I'm not aware of any previous translations.
Trevor Dykes.

The Murine mouse opossum by KF
The Murine mouse opossum (Didelphys dorsigera) has its home in South America, specifically in Surinam; it is a close relative of the opossum of North America, and belongs to the same family of marsupial possums. While, however, this opossum, much hunted due to the damage it commits and, less so, for the value of its fur, does possess a marsupial pouch in which the very immaturely born young spend the first weeks of their existence but, with the Murine mouse opossum, this pouch only consists of two folds of skin to the sides. Therefore, their young come to the world after a longer pregancy in a more developed condition. According to Brehm, the Murine mouse opossum had a certain fame in the old days of natural history. "They were named as dorsigera, meaning 'carrying on the back', and it was said of them that they carried their young on their back due to a self-sacrificial love, as Aeneas did for his aged father in the well known legend. This rather moving account is an extremely poetic picture in which the young are all positioned along the back with their small, snaking tails wrapped around the tail of the adult. (See the illustrations in old natural history books.) In reality, such a situation might occasionally arise; but what the young generally do is that they hold tightly onto the fur and body of the adult, and wherever they can find space."

The very muscular, hairless tail plays a very large role in the life of opossums, as it is powerful enough to bear the full weight when they hang on it and swing, and this allows them to obtain a necessary "run up" for a leap to reach a neighbouring tree. The hand-like built back feet, the big toe of which is formed like a thumb, allows for a secure grasp of a selected twig. It follows that opossums are superb climbers and lead a pronounced arboreal life. (Additional note: That's generally so, but some live in places with no or few trees. Nevertheless, their build is still similar.) Their gait on the ground is primitive, as they move the limbs on one side together during a step. The Murine mouse opossums sleep during the day in deserted squirrel nests, are vary languid and lazy beings, and avoid any unnecessary movement. The tree tops offer them food in great quantities in the form of shoots, fruits, berries, nuts, insects, bird eggs and young birds, and they come down to the Earth floor for variety, and dig for roots or pursue a plundering raid on the nearest maize field. They are feared visitors to chicken hutches. Therefore, the farmers hate opossums and persecute Murine mouse opossums vigorously despite their fur having no value. Hunting and trapping offer no particular difficulties, but the Murine mouse opossum is unbelievably tough and can survive the extremest mishandling, it will often pretend to be dead and then, at the last moment, manage to escape. Otherwise, these lazy bones display little intelligence, and are far below rats when it comes to intellectual abilities. "They are," says Heck, "the least intelligent beings, at least in captivity, and have an unbelievably deep-seated stubbornness which makes them most contrary for the keeper."