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"You are a night creature, I suppose, or you wouldn't be awake now. Well, don't you think it unfair the way everything is arranged for the day creatures?" "But then," said Dot, "there are so many more day creatures." "That doesn't make any difference," observed the Koala. "But it does," said Dot. "How?" asked the native Bear.
"Because if you had the day it wouldn't be any good to you, and if they had the night it wouldn't be any good to them. So your night couldn't be their day, and their day couldn't be your night." "You make my head feel empty," said the Koala. "But you'd think differently if a flock of Kookooburras settled on your tree, and guffawed idiotically when you wanted to sleep."
The Opossum inspected everything in Dot's room, and tried to fight itself in the looking-glass. It then got the Koala to look into the mirror also, and said it would get an idea into its little empty head if it did.
"As you don't like being waked yourself, why do you wake others then?" asked Dot. "Because this is a free country," said the Koala. While Dot was trying to understand why the Koala's reason should suffice for one animal making another's life uncomfortable, she was rejoiced to see the Kangaroo bound into sight. She forgot all about the Koala, and rushed forward to meet it.
"Because they live in the same tree of course," said the Koala. "If they lived in different trees, and never quarrelled, they wouldn't like it at all. They'd find life dull, and they'd get sulky. There's nothing worse than a sulky 'possum. They are champions at that." "They make a dreadful noise with their quarrelling," said Dot. "They are nearly as bad as the Flying Foxes over there.
Its fur is difficult to manipulate, as it will not lie flat, so the koala should have been left in peace. But its confiding and somewhat stupid nature, and the senseless desire of small boys and "children of larger growth" to kill something wild just for the sake of killing, has led to the koala being almost exterminated in many places.
Koala was rather like the Mad Hatter that Alice met in Wonderland; he was "a very poor man," by his way of it; and, though in reality rather a contented creature, seemed generally to be upon the extreme verge of shedding tears.
A terrible hullabaloo between a pair of Opossums up a neighbouring gum tree arrested the attention of both Dot and the Koala. Presently the sounds of snarling, spitting, and screaming ended, and an Opossum climbed out to the far end of a branch, where the moonlight shone on his grey fur like silver.
"You make my head feel empty," complained the Koala. "I'm sure you're all wrong; for an animal's skin and fur is his own, and it's his life's business to keep it whole. Everyone in the bush is trying to keep his skin whole, all day long, and all night too. Good gracious! What is the matter up there?"
It needs only to be said that these animals are very much like other flying squirrels; and in fact they are squirrels, only squirrels of the marsupial kind. There are several species already described. Another pouched animal is the Koala, or Ashy Koala as it is called. It differs in appearance from all the others, being of stout make, and almost without a tail.
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