The Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh District. 101 
especially when there is frost and a sprinkling of snow on 
the ground; and I have captured them in the daytime as 
readily as at night. Though probably most active towards 
evening and after nightfall, the Shrews cannot properly be 
regarded as nocturnal animals, nor do they appear to hibernate 
even partially. 
SOREX MINUTUS Z.=SoREX PYGMAuUS Pall. 
LESSER SHREW. 
The authors of the last edition of Bell’s “ British Quadru- 
peds” (1872) were disposed to regard the Lesser Shrew as 
generally distributed in Scotland ; but, while the correctness 
of their assumption need not be questioned, it should be 
remembered that it was based on very scanty data; and it is 
to be regretted that during the nineteen years which have 
since elapsed our knowledge of the animal’s actual distribu- 
tion in the country has received scarcely any substantial 
increase. By the uninitiated the Lesser Shrew is hardly 
likely to be distinguished from the common species; but our 
present ignorance of its precise range north of the Tweed is 
not creditable to Scottish field-naturalists. 
During the winter of 1888-89, I gave the ferryman at 
Cramond a few traps, which he set in and about his garden, 
on the Linlithgow side of the Almond. Among other things, 
he captured three examples of this tiny quadruped, one of 
which—the first recorded from this district—was exhibited 
by me at a meeting of the Royal Physical Society on 20th 
March 1889. In the course of last winter (1890-91) three 
or four others, captured by the Messrs Campbell a little 
farther west in Dalmeny Park, have passed through my 
hands; and from what Mr M‘Leish, mole-catcher, Millburn, 
near Corstorphine, tells me, there can be no doubt he has 
observed it in his neighbourhood. On 22nd November 1890 
Mr Eagle Clarke captured one in the daytime on the northern 
slopes of the Pentlands, at Colzium, as recorded in the 
Scottish Naturalist for January last, page 36; and on 25th 
February Mr T. G. Laidlaw brought me another which his 
brother had trapped the previous day at Hallmyre, near 
West Linton, Peeblesshire. According to Alston (“Fauna 
