Letter to the Editor

The calculations appearing in the last paragraph of my paper "Diet of the opossum" (Trichosorus vulpecula Kerr) on farmland northeast of Waverley, New Zealand", (Ecological Society Proceedings 20, 1973) are not correct. This has been kindly pointed out to me by Dr Eric Spurr (Forest Research Institute) who has given the following corrected version: If each opossum eats 0.11 kg dry matter/day, then 43 opossums/ha eat 4.70 kg d.m./ha/day. If each sheep eats 3.50 kg dry matter/day, then 43 opossums/ha eat 4.70/3.50 kg = 1.34 sheep equivalents/ha. This contrasts with my calculation of 2.5 sheep equivalents/ha. I am indebted to Dr Spurr for sorting out this error.