Short-tailed Shrew 



being a deformity, and stand out from the shoulders like flippers. 

 A shrew's feet, on the contrary, including those of the little chap 

 under discussion, are perfectly normal in appearance and like those 

 of mice. 



The mole shrew is four or five inches long, the tail about 

 one. It has a cylindrical, pig-like body, and dark ashy gray fur, 

 lighter beneath. They are obstinate, savage, little brutes, but are 

 unquestionably of immense service to the farmers, spending their 

 lives in a most vigorous pursuit of insects of all kinds. They 

 combine impartially the habits of the moles and shrews, some- 

 times burrowing along just beneath the turf which they push up 

 in low ridges which intersect each other, apparently quite at 

 random, without exhibiting any of the system characteristic of the 

 works of the mole. 



This is evidently done in search of insects, though the tunnels 

 made in this manner are afterwards used as runways, and it may 

 be for nurseries. This partially underground existence shows its 

 effect on the species, not only in the mole-like shape of the 

 body, but in the size of the fore feet, which are a little larger 

 and broader than the hind ones, the fore feet of the other shrews 

 being small and delicate. 



But the mole shrew in adopting the habits of the moles has 

 not given over the ways of its own people by any means. A 

 true mole on the surface of the ground is a creature completely 

 out of its element, its chief desire being to bury itself from 

 sight as quickly as possible. The mole shrew, on the contrary, 

 spends much of its time in the open air from preference, running 

 about over the fallen leaves of the forest or along the shaded 

 galleries of stone walls, which it is as fond of following as 

 is the weasel. 



Their keen noses enable them to scent meat at a considerable 

 distance, and when they have succeeded in finding any that may 

 have been left by the larger hunters, they fall upon it ravenously, 

 tearing at it and devouring it with all the ferocity of wolves. 



One that I caught in a trap had already, when I found it, 

 disposed of the raw meat, which had served as bait, and when 

 confined in a cage immediately seized upon whatever meat was 

 offered it, whether raw or cooked, without discriminating be- 

 tween kinds. Beef, pork and cold chicken all went the same 

 way, while the fury of his appetite was being appeased. Both in 



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