THE INSECTIVOKA. 45 



The shrew breeds in the spring, the young, which number 



from five to eight, being born in July or August in an un- 



derground nest made of dry grass and leaves.^ 



The shrews are all of more or less nocturnal 



habits, but, unlike the mole, they find their food at the 



surface, and consequently, instead of displacing the soil, 



their runs are made in the grass, much as those of fish and 



waterfowl in the reeds in Broadland. They 



become torpid in winter, their sleep being 



more perfect than that of bats, and rarely, if ever, disturbed 



by any unusual rise in temperature. 



The colour of the Common Shrew is usually reddish 



above and grey beneath. Its most distinctive 



PP^rance, fg^ture is the short, bristly, four-sided tail. 



Like all the group, it secretes an unpleasant 



odour in lateral glands concealed by long hairs. 



Of the Lesser Shrew little need be said beyond the 



interesting fact in its distribution that, while less common 



Lesser in England, it replaces the larger shrew in 



Shrew. Ireland and the Hebrides. The forearm is 



Distribution, relatively shorter than in the latter, the teeth 



being also more minute. 



The Water Shrew is a rapid swimmer and powerful 

 "Water diver, the fur keeping comparatively dry when 

 Shrew, immersed. It does not occur in Ireland. 

 Its food consists, like that of the others, chiefly of 

 insects, caddis among the rest ; but it seems admitted that 

 it has occasionally been caught in the act of 

 devouring the spawn and fry of game fish. 

 In turn, it is much persecuted by the weasel, which over- 

 takes it in the water with ease, and also by pike and, in 

 Continental rivers, wels. 



The female, considerably the smaller of the two, gives 



1 The nest is usually in a depression of the ground, but Mr Harting 

 tells me that it is sometimes found in a clover field, ball-shaped, like 

 that of the harvest-mouse. This shrew is thought by some to rear a 

 second litter (see the ' Zoologist,' November 1896, p. 432). 



