136 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



LJune 1, 1870. 



relating to gloves, shows the class of sprite that 

 dressed his head with the rakish caps formed out 

 of a foxglove heel ; and, according to its other name, 

 " fairy glove," perhaps his hands or arms. It would 

 not be a much greater stretch of imagination than 

 in many other derivations to read love instead of 

 glove, and make it " Puck's love," which, when read 

 after Lusmore, great or fairy-loved herb, would not 

 appear strange. In support of this, the country 

 people used to .believe that each plant of Digitalis 

 was a fairy home, and that the little creatures used 

 to scuttle into the bells, thus gloving themselves 

 from observation when a passer-by disturbed their 

 revels. The fairy herb keeps its stem bent, as a 

 salute to any supernatural being that should pass, 

 and also from the weight of so many nightly 

 gamblers amongst its bells ; the flowers that have 

 fallen from its stem are the discarded caps and 

 clothing [of the last night's revellers. In every 

 sense, and amongst all imaginative European races, 

 the Digitalis is allowed to be, par excellence, the fairy 

 or supernatural plant, and certainly to have nothing 

 to do with the fox. Not being a Welshman, I am 

 not learned in their fairy lore, so will make no 

 further remarks than that the Digitalis is called, in 

 Welsh, Menyg Ellyllon (Puck's gloves). 

 Dalkey, Co. Dublin. Harry Blake Knox. 



THE SHREW. 



SOME time ago you inserted my observations on 

 the Hedgehog, which I had thrown together in 

 the hopes that, being personal, they might remove 

 absurd prejudice, and establish the great usefulness 

 (agriculturally viewed) of that despised animal ; and 

 I had, a short time since, the gratification to hear a 

 farmer, hitherto a despiser, so much of a convert as to 

 scold soundly his farming boy for destroying a brood. 

 1 now make a like appeal for a much smaller, though 

 I believe equally useful animal, the Shrew, one who 

 has been equally the victim of prejudice, in that our 

 forefathers considered it venomous to the extent 

 that not only its bite, but the mere run of the 

 creature over the foot, was sufficient to cause lame- 

 ness. Although this is no longer held a fact, yet 

 being called " Mouse," and having soft fur and a 

 long tail, he is ruthlessly destroyed with that 

 troublesome class. My 'observations have been, I 

 own, more scanty than in the case of the Hedgehog, 

 for several reasons : the extreme nimbleness and 

 activity of tiie creature renders it very difficult to 

 be procured unhurt, and to be kept where the 

 comforts are sufficiently studied to induce it to show 

 its natural habits. It was near three months, last 

 autumn, although the animals were tolerably plenti- 

 ful and the farmers most obliging, before they suc- 

 ceeded in catching the nimble little beast unhurt. 

 The delay was annoying, as the early frost began 

 to kill,' and to drive to winter quarters, their only 



food. Of four thus procured, three got away before 

 they were half tamed ; I think the efforts to escape 

 were made more desperate through the very unhappy 

 domestic life they led. 1 could not ascertain the 

 sexes ;'tbut from difference of colour and size, they 

 were, I think, not all of the same, for no one met 

 another without squeakings and fights so desperate 

 that I have been obliged to thrust my fingers between 

 them to prevent murder, they rolling over and over 

 like two tom-cats. The one brought to town lived 

 but, three months, having become,' perfectly tame, 

 and so playful as to chase after slips of soft paper, 

 and run off with them into his bed (a box with a 

 smallj hole in it), showing much cleverness not to 

 tread on it in entering, by thrusting, in the corner 

 only, running in himself and pulling in the paper 

 from the inside. Their food was exclusively insect 

 when] procurable, from blue-bottle, beetles, cater- 

 pillars, down to worms, and even aphides ; wasps 

 which I had killed and removed the stings from, 

 deeming it too formidable a weapon for so small a 

 creature, they even eat. Can they dare to en- 

 counter such in nature ? A little meat and bread 

 and milk were obliged to be supplemented as winter 

 advanced ; but they did not like it, and it disagreed 

 with them even more than with the Hedgehog. I 

 was once a little staggered by their seizing a pea 

 and wheat grains, and running off to thrust them in 

 a corner ; but I found every one again when 

 cleaning out their domain, and I now believe it was 

 done in playfulness : no sort of grain or vegetable 

 is taken by them as food. In seasons abounding in 

 insect vermin, they doubtless destroy far more than 

 they can eat. The staple food of my London visitor 

 was the black-beetle ; those he would rush after and 

 overtake in a moment, and begin to devour : put in 

 another, he would catch that, disable, and carry it to 

 some safe place, then return to eat the first; this he 

 would continue to do with every additional beetle : 

 he could eat two or three large cockroaches in suc- 

 cession. They are able to kill and eat the large 

 evening drone or dung beetle, a creature not very 

 inferior in size to themselves, supposing the fur 

 removed. The extremities are most delicately 

 formed, yet their strength is sufficient to move 

 boxes, &c, twenty or thirty times their own weight. 

 The very small eye and long snout, in common 

 with our other two insect-eaters, the Hedgehog and 

 Mole, are against their personal beauty. Extreme 

 definition rather than light seems to be important 

 to enable them to dart with unerring celerity on 

 their nimble prey ; and the extended nose not only 

 furnishes an exquisite sense of smell, but in the 

 Shrew the movable snout, which is pointed in all 

 directions with extreme quickness, seems to enable 

 it to ascertain the exact spot where the", scented 

 game is to be looked for, as an Adams directs his 

 elongated eye to the region .of a suspected planet. 



George Cox, 



