92 Mr. J. E. Harting on Forest Animals. 



Childrey in his Britannia Baconica, 1660, relates (p. 14) 

 that in 1580 an extraordinary swarm of Field-mice appeared 

 in Denge Hundred, Essex, and eat up all the roots of the 

 grass. " A great number of Owles," he says, " of strange 

 and various colours [doubtless the Short-eared OwlJ 

 assembled, and devoured them all; and after they had 

 made an end of their prey, they took flight back again from 

 whence they came." 



We come now to the order Insectivora, or insect-eating 

 mammals, of which I have two to bring to your notice as 

 dwellers in the forest, namely, the Common Shrew and the 

 Hedf^ehog. The animals belonging to this order are at 

 once distinguishable from the Eodents by their dentition. 

 The latter, as I have pointed out, have no canine teeth ; 

 Insectivora have, and their dentition generally resembles 

 that of the strictly insectivorous bats, the molars, or 

 grinding teeth, being similarly furnished with several sharp 

 cusps or points which are characteristic of insect-eating 

 mammals, and all the teeth have roots or fangs. There 

 are other peculiarities of stracture, with wliich, however, 

 at present I need not trouble you. 



From its shy and retired habits, the Coromon Shrew is 

 not often to be observed in a living state, but may frequently 

 be seen lying dead on the pathway. The cause of the 

 mortality amongst these little animals, though frequently 

 noticed, has never been satisfactorily accounted for ; and 

 Bell, in his '•' British Quadrupeds," has not attempted any 

 explanation. It has been said that their odour is repulsive 

 to their enemies, who will kill but will not eat them ; but 

 this is not invariably the case, for I have found numerous 

 skulls of shrews in ''pellets" of the barn owl, and once 

 took two of these little creatures from the stomach of a 

 stone curlew. 



Of the Hedgehog I might say a good deal, but having so 

 many other '* Forest Animals " on my Hst I must be brief. 



Although from its structure and mode of life the hedge- 

 hog is properly classed wdth the Insectivora, it is really 

 omnivorous. Nothing seems to come amiss to it. Beetles, 

 worms, slugs, snails, frogs, mice, eggs, young clii.ckens, and 



