THE ELEPHANT SHREW 2)1 



all taken from holes such as would be occupied by 

 rodents or insectivora. Hence it would be interesting 

 to know whether the Algerian shrew possesses in its 

 musky odour any safeguard from this terrible enemy 

 which, rousing at twilight like its victims, can writhe 

 its way into the smallest crevice, its forked tongue 

 quivering from its mouth as it hunts diligently and 

 silently through the hot African night.^ One recollects 

 in this connection the Gaboon puff adder (Bitis 

 Gabonica) as figured over the title "Death" in a 

 recent work by Sir H. H. Johnston, The deadly 

 reptile, brilliantly arrayed in a scaly mosaic of pinky 

 grey, lemon yellow, and what not, lies on the leaf- 

 strewn path of an Uganda forest, its body prone to 

 earth, and its flattened head eloquent of malignant 

 hostility. Similarly does the cerastes constitute the 

 hideous memento niori oi x}i\^ Saharan desert; indeed 

 it has been thought by some to have been the asp 

 which slew Cleopatra. 



The elephant shrew was first discovered by 

 Captain Rozet in the neighbourhood of Oran. He 

 forwarded the specimen to M. Duvernoy, who 

 in 1832 described it in the Memoirs of the 

 Strasburg Natural History Society. M. Wagner 

 also obtained this species near Algiers ; examples are 

 known to have been preserved in the collection of 



1 The word "writhe" is used advisedly, as the The Field ior 1904 

 contains a figure showing the mode of progression employed. The cerastes 

 moves by means of a strong lateral curving of the body, thus presenting 

 quite a crumpled up appearance when viewed from above. 



