Descriptions of East Asiatic Mammals 51 
dark gray-brown with a slight wash of straw color on the sides 
and underside grayish buff. Another ally of S. araneus, the 
Flat-headed Shrew, vS\ platycranius from Ussuri, has the winter 
pelage colored dorsally chestnut-brown, the sides ochraceous, 
and the underparts white. A third member of the same group, 
the Virile Shrew, 5. vir, is much like S. platycranius — the back 
reddish brown, the upper part of the sides straw-brown, the 
under surface buffy. 
The Least Shrew, S. tskerskii, of southern Ussuri, in sum- 
mer has the dorsal fur light gray-brown with a wash of straw 
color, the underparts grayish silvery. A relative, S. ussuriensis 
from the same general region, is dark gray, slightly paler be- 
neath. Its feet and hands are blackish. Yet another ally, S. 
hawker i of Japan, is darker still than ussuriensis. 
The Pygmy Shrew, represented on Sakhalin by vS\ minutus 
gracillimus, is dark olive-brown above, grayish white beneath. 
The sides of the tail in that race are clad with thick erect hair, 
forming a tassel at the tip. The color of the tail is brownish 
gray above, whitish gray beneath. This race is found in marshy 
plains. Pygmy Shrews occur from Europe to Siberia, either in 
open marshy places or in low, larch-covered hill country near 
water. Wasmuth indicates that from 4 to 14 ( ?) young are born 
in July ; or there may be two litters each year. The nest, made 
of twined grasses, may be found in calamus swamps. The food 
includes snails and earthworms. 
The Greater Pgymy Shrew, S. macro pygmceus, native of 
Kamchatka, is reported to occur in two color phases : ( 1 ) light 
reddish gray with underparts gray-white, washed with cinna- 
mon; (2) dark brownish gray with underparts silver-white, 
with a wash of straw. Its representative along the coasts west of 
the Sea of Okhotsk, S. m. koreni, is found in three color phases : 
(1) above light straw with a reddish wash, underside silvery 
white; (2) reddish above; (3) dark brown, with the sides red- 
dish buff and the underparts yellowish white. The tail is red- 
