MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 1 89 



These are only a color phase of the black species, as I have ascertained by 

 an examination of the skull and claws of one taken near Eaglesmere recently 

 by Mr. Bennett. Cubs in the same litter have been found in the western 

 U. States, one of which was black and the other brown. The same variations 

 occur in the grizzly bear, Ursus horribilis. In the Alaskan mountains a small 

 nearly white bear, closely allied to our black species, is found. A yellowish 

 race of the black bear is found in Louisiana, U. a. luteolus (Grififith). 



Measia-ements. — Taken from a 3 or 4-year-old male, trapped by S. N. 

 Rhoads, in Clinton Co., Oct. 29, 1898. Total length, 1342 mm. (5154^ in.); 

 tail, 106 (4}(). They sometimes grow to be 5^ feet long, and often weigh 

 ■over 300 pounds when fat. 



Order INSECTIVORA: Insect eaters. 

 Family Soricid/e ; Shrews. 

 Genus Sorex Linnaeus, Sysfema Naturae, 1758, vol. i, p. 53. 

 Eastern Masked Shrew. Sorex personatiis L Geoffroy St. Hilaire. 



1827. Sorex personatiis L Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Memoir Museum d' His- 

 toire Naturelle, Paris, vol. 15, p. t2, 122. 



Type locality. — Eastern United States. 



Faunal distribution. — Canadian, transition and upper austral zones ; At- 

 lantic Ocean to Cascade Mountains. 



Distribution in Pa. and N. J^. — Abundant chiefly in damp and marshy 

 situations in the Canadian and transition areas of both states. Rare in the 

 austral areas except on the maritime marshes where it is more abundant, per- 

 haps, than in any other situation in our limits. Also numerous in the boreal 

 bogs of the southern interior of N. J. The only specimens of this shrew I 

 ever saw in the vicinity of Philadelphia were two. One was caught and 

 swallowed by a chicken on my uncle's farm near Marple, Delaware Co., Pa. 

 The other I trapped in a pine woods near Haddonfield, Camden Co., N. J. 

 Two from Kennett Square, Chester Co., Pa., are in the Cope collection. 

 Dobson records one from Haddonfield, N. J. 



Habits, etc. — This is the least of our mammals, and being subterranean in 

 its living and rare in upland tracts below the mountains, is seldom seen alive. 

 Though I have trapped a great many, I never saw one alive outside of a trap. 

 It not only makes tiny galleries through the moss, vegetable mold and loose 

 sod of the places its frequents, but uses largely the burrows of the mice and 

 moles which associate with it. T4iat it is semi-aquatic there can be no doubt, 

 as its runways often descend directly into subterranean springs, pools and 



