Manchester Memoirs. Vol. Ivt. (igi2), No. t. 5 



violently, after which he recommenced upon the dead 

 shrew, and presently settled down for a nap. During 

 the afternoon I gave him several bluebottles which he ate 

 greedily. At 5 p.m. I substituted a freshly killed young 

 Bank Vole for the remains of the shrew. This he attacked 

 at once, first eating an ear and then the brain, after which 

 he burrowed for the heart and lungs through the upper 

 part of the thorax. This, I have noticed, is the usual pro- 

 cedure when shrews devour dead mice. Usually, but not 

 invariabl}', when they have time to finish the banquet, 

 they leave the skin turned inside out with the paws and 

 tail attached to it. This was the condition of the remains 

 of the Bank Vole the next morning and of some others 

 which I gave him, except one the skin of which I found a 

 ragged heap of shreds. On October 4th I left him at 

 night with a large dead Long-tailed Field Mouse weighing 

 33 grammes. On the morning of October 6th there was 

 nothing left but most of the skin, paws, and leg bones 

 picked clean. During these thirty-six hours he also 

 ate twelve half-grown cockroaches, two small snails [Helix 

 nifescens\ the following small slugs, s\:K.Agriolimaxagresiis, 

 and five Avion horteiisis, also three earthworms about 

 three inches long. As the shrew weighed 7 to 8 grammes, 

 he had consumed nearly four times his own weight in 

 thirty-six hours ; and it must be remembered that as 

 nothing was left uneaten, the presumption is that he could 

 have eaten more. 



On my offering him a large yellow slug {Limax flavus; 

 he attacked it without hesitation, but the slime was too 

 much for him, he could get hold neither with teeth nor 

 claws, and after four attacks (from each of which he with- 

 drew to clean the slime off face and paws by rubbing 

 them in the dry sand) he gave it up and went to hunt for 

 something else. 



