Rev. L. Jenyns on the British Shrews. 419 



tailed shrew, the fore feet especially, are broad and strong as 

 if formed for digging ; whereas those of the common shrew are 

 comparatively weak and slender, and much less adapted for 

 that purpose. The tail, notwithstanding the changes induced 

 in it by age and other circumstances, also offers good distin- 

 guishing characters. Its average length appears to be great- 

 est in the common shrew, although this species is, in all other 

 respects, smaller than the other. It is also stouter in this 

 species, nearly cylindrical, and of more uniform thickness, the 

 end terminating abruptly ; better clothed with hair at all ages, 

 the hair standing very much out, especially in young speci- 

 mens, and though extending at the extremity beyond the 

 bone to the distance of a line or more, seldom converging into 

 a point to form a pencil. In the square-tailed shrew, as its 

 name indicates, the tail is more decidedly quadrangular at all 

 ages. It is also slenderer, and slightly tapering at the tip ; the 

 hair not so long or copious as in the common shrew, and never 

 standing out, but, on the contrary, closely appressed in young 

 specimens, and forming at the extremity a short but fine 

 pencil. As age advances, the hair in this species often be- 

 comes so much worn, as to leave the tail nearly or quite naked, 

 without any pencil, and with the angles at the sides extremely 

 obvious. The only differences in the dentition of these two 

 shrews are to be seen in the relative size and position of the la- 

 teral incisors. In the square-tailed shrew, the first and second 

 of these teeth in the upper jaw are nearly equal ; so likewise 

 are the third and fourth ; but the former two are obviously 

 larger than the latter two : the fifth is much smaller than any 

 of the preceding ones, very inconspicuous, and generally set a 

 little within the line of the others, so as to be not readily seen 

 from without. In the common shrew, the first four of these 

 incisors diminish in size more gradually, and form a more regu- 

 lar series ; the fifth is also larger in relation to the others, more 

 in the line, and more obvious externally. The colours of these 

 two species are not very dissimilar ; but they appear to be less 

 variable, and generally somewhat darker, in the square-tailed 

 than in the common shrew. The back, in the former, is not so 

 obviously tinged with reddish; and I alluded in my previous 

 paper to an appearance of three colours, occupying respect- 



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