REMARKS ON THE LONG-TAILED SHREWS OF THE 

 EASTERN UNITED STATES, WITH DESCRIPTION OF A 

 NEW SPECIES. 



By N. Hoi.lister, 



Assistant Curator, Division of Mammals, U. S. National Museum. 



Since the publication of Dr. C. Hart Merriam's Synopsis of the 

 American Shrews of the genus Sorex, 1895/ the number of specimens 

 from southern localities has been greatly increased. Aside from 

 Sorex personatus and S. fumeus from mountain localities, there was 

 nothing available at that time but two imperfect specimens of the 

 supposed "lesueurii" a few specimens of S.jisheri from the Dismal 

 Swamp, and perhaps half a dozen specimens from Raleigh, North 

 Carolina, which were assumed to represent Sorex longirostris, described 

 by Bachman from the swamps of the Santee River, South Carolina. 

 The overhauling of the old alcoholic shrews in the collection of the 

 United States National Museum and a study of the recently acquired 

 material in skins and skulls have resulted in some interesting discov- 

 eries and given a better understanding of the southern forms of 

 Sorex than was ever before possible. South of New York and Wis- 

 consin the restricted genus Sorex is represented by five distinct 

 species. 2 



SOREX PERSONATUS I. Geoffroy. 

 1827. Sorex personatus I. Geoffroy, Mem. rnus. d'hist. nat. Paris, vol. 15, p. 122. 



The most abundant and generally distributed species in the north- 

 ern States, this shrew is represented in the collection by many 

 specimens from Maine to Wisconsin. The few specimens from the 

 southern boundary of its range in the upper Mississippi Valley 

 (southeastern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) and 

 from New Jersey and the lower Hudson Valley, New York, average 

 slightly smaller than specimens from New England, northern New 

 York, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the skulls averaging about 

 1 millimeter shorter, with flatter braincases. Farther south, where 

 the species occurs only in the mountains of Maryland, the Virginias, 



i North Amer. Fauna, No. 10, pp. 57-98, December 31, 1895. 



2 Three other long-tailed shrews have been found in this area: Ncosorex albibarbis in Pennsylvania, Micro- 

 sorex hoyi in Ohio, and Microsorex winnemana in Virginia and Maryland. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 40— No. 1825. 



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