io6 SORICID^— SOREX 



have myself noticed the Pribiloff Island Shrew on St Paul's 

 Island, Alaska, in autumn, and on neither island do hedgehogs 

 occur. 



A remarkable suggestion is that of Mr English, who, as 

 quoted by Mr Millais, having observed that shrews die very 

 readily, as, for instance, on the snapping of a trap by which they 

 are themselves untouched, thinks that they may perish during 

 thunderstorms or when the atmosphere is in an unsettled 

 thundery state. Such a suggestion is one of those which is 

 more easily advanced than substantiated, but, strange as it 

 may seem, it cannot be regarded as absolutely unfounded on 

 fact. I can myself corroborate the fact that a shrew may die 

 on the mere snapping of a trap, and Mr F. G. Aflalo suggests, 

 on plausible grounds, that they succumb readily from fear.^ 

 Many certainly perish in combats with adversaries no more 

 terrible than their own species, and it may indeed be possible 

 that a thunderstorm should occasionally affect them fatally. 



Mr Cocks has pointed out to me that, as already stated, the 

 Common Shrew is probably by far the most numerous mammal 

 in the British Isles, as it is also, according to Professor Collett,^ 

 in Norway ; and all the shrews are very prolific, so that the 

 three species aggregated must total a vast multitude, of which 

 many more must die each year than of any other mammal or 

 group of mammals. 



Anyone who has watched the gait of shrews of any species 

 at close quarters, as in captivity, through glass, cannot fail to 

 have been struck with the extreme feebleness displayed. They 

 totter in every movement, exactly as if they were suffering 

 badly from rickets ; their legs barely support their weight, and 

 they continually stumble over the slightest obstruction, such as 

 a small bit of moss or grass, so that in the case of a freshly- 

 caught individual one can hardly persuade oneself that one of 

 its legs is not broken. 



The instinct of any animal on finding itself ill in any way, 

 is to hasten to some hiding place, where the dead body is in a 

 great majority of cases not found ; but the least accident of any 



1 Field, 13th August 1898, 279. 



2 "Norges vigtigste Hvirveldyr," in Norge i det Nitiende Aarhundrcdc 190x3,, 

 p. 85. 



