WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



come abroad except at night from their homes 

 under logs and stones, where they creep out 

 through tiny tunnels among the grass and be- 

 neath fallen leaves that sharp eyes only may trace. 

 One more often picks up their dead bodies in the 

 woods than those of any other mammal — gashed 

 by sharp teeth or claws, very likely, but uneaten. 

 These have been struck down by some owl or weasel 

 or cat, and then rejected in disgust, for they pos- 

 sess a vile odor. Ignorant or careless that they 

 are an important part of nature s police against 

 injurious insects, the farmer usually crushes the 

 shrew beneath his heel as he would a mouse where- 

 ever he finds it; and in some parts of the country 

 the European superstition still lingers that shrews 

 will poison cattle by biting them, or will give them 

 lameness by running across a limb. 



Shrews grade through intermediate forms into 

 the moles, whose lives seem the m.ost circumscribed 

 and uneventful of all quadrupeds. It is a hard 

 fate that has driven these creatures underground, 

 for they are given no easement of these conditions, 

 are never permitted to come outside at all, where 

 their powerful fore-limbs and wonderful armature 

 of digging claws are as useless as thej^ are gro- 

 tesque. Yet the distance anatomically is small 



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