92 



SORICID.E— SOREX 



DIMENSIONS IN MILLIMETRES:— 



* Twice only for each sex. 



Of the dimensions given in the above table, those in the left-hand 

 columns were taken from the labels on specimens in the British Museum 

 of Natural History, immature examples being, so far as possible, 

 excluded. Those in the right-hand columns were sent me by Adams, 

 and the two sets agree so closely, as well as do others received from 

 Buckinghamshire (Cocks) and Devonshire (Hollis), that the averages 

 may be taken as fairly correct for specimens all the year round. But, 

 as shown by Adams, to whom I am indebted for numerous valuable 

 notes amplifying his paper (noticed on p. io8), the average size of adults 

 varies throughout the year, being at its maximum in June, and there- 

 after decreasing until winter, and, if his contention be true that the 

 life of a shrew reaches only about a year, then true adults would only 

 be obtainable from May to December, and during the rest of 

 the year all specimens would be immature. It follows that an average, 

 taken from specimens captured at a particular season would not agree 

 with that for the complete year. Thus, twenty-four adult males taken 

 by Adams in May, June, and July, 1911, averaged 81 for length of head 

 and body, and reached, in two cases, a maximum of 84. Eighteen 

 females taken under the same conditions averaged 82, and reached the 

 same maximum six times. The largest specimen of which I have a 

 reliable record was taken by Kinnear in Scotland ; it reached 88 (head 

 and body), 39 (tail), 13 (hind foot). 



Allen found that in vS. buxtoni {Bull. Ainer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1903, 

 181), an East Siberian representative of vS. araneus, males are larger 



