Rev. L. Jenyns on the British Shrews. 425 



hind ; the lateral incisors which follow in the upper jaw four 

 in number ; the first two equal, the third somewhat smaller, 

 the fourth rudimentary ; the tips of all the teeth a little coloured, 

 Sp. 3. S. fodiens, Gmel. (Water Shrew). Deep brownish- 

 black above, nearly white beneath, the two colours distinctly 

 separated on the sides : feet and tail ciliated with white hairs. 



S. fodiens, Gmel. i. p. 113. Bechst. Naturgesch. Deutsch. i. p. 872. pi. 



10./. 1. Brehm, in Bui. des Sci. Nat. (1827) xi. p. 287. Man. Brit. 



Vert. p. 18. — S. bicolor, Shaw, Nat. Misc. ii.pl. 55. — Crossopus fodiens, 



Wagler, in Isis, 1832 (fid. Duv.). — Water shrew, Penn. Brit. Zool. i. 



p. 126. Bell, Brit. Quad. p. 115. 

 Hob. Marshes and banks of ditches ; but it is occasionally met with at 

 a distance from water. 



Ohs. Montagu has recorded an individual which had the 

 throat and breast pale ferruginous*. Fleming, in his descrip- 

 tion of this species f x states that there is a black spot in the 

 middle of the throat, with a line of the same colour along the 

 middle of the belly ; also that the tail is nearly white at the 

 tip. Whether these variations of colour be merely accidental, 

 or dependent upon sex or season, or whether characteristic of 

 any allied species confounded with the above, remains yet to 

 be determined. Montagu's specimen was a male ; so likewise 

 was one mentioned by a writer in Loudon's Magazine of 

 Natural History J, in which the throat is said to have been of 

 a deep chestnut. But nothing of this colour was observable 

 in any of the specimens 1 have met with in Cambridgeshire, 

 of which at least two have been males taken during the sum- 

 mer months. Neither have I ever seen the markings spoken 

 of by Fleming ; but they are noticed by Bechstein in his de- 

 scription of this species. Also the writer in Loudon's Maga- 

 zine, above alluded to, states that a week after the capture of 

 the male with the chestnut-coloured throat, a female was taken, 

 in which the throat was grayish. Both these last were caught 

 in a cellar during winter ; and I am inclined to suspect that 

 they were the sexes of a species possibly distinct from the one 

 more commonly met with, in which the under parts, with the 

 exception of a triangular dusky spot on the vent, are nearly 

 pure white. 



* Linn. Trans, vii. 276. f Brit. An. p. 8. 



X Vol. iii. p. 471. 



