XVI TOPSELL ON THE SHREW 519 
upper canine may not be a fourth incisor, and whether the 
first premolar may not be really the canine. Another peculiar 
feature about the dentition of Sorex is the suppression of the teeth of 
the milk dentition, which are functionless, and probably uncalcified. 
The genus Sorex is terrestrial. The tail is long and covered with 
hairs. There are two species in this country, S. vulgaris and 8. 
minutus. The former is the Shrew of legend and superstition ; 
and it is no doubt the species that has lent its name to the more 
untameable members of the softer sex, though it is the males 
which are especially pugnacious. As to legend, everybody has 
heard of the shrew ash whose leaves, after a Shrew has been 
inserted living into a hole cleft in the tree, are a specific for 
diseases of cattle, caused by the Shrew itself creeping over 
them. 
The Rev. Edward Topsell, author of Zhe Historie of Four- 
footed Beastes, who defends his veracity by asserting that he does 
not write “for the rude and vulgar sort, who being utterly 
ignorant of the operation of learning, do presently condemne al 
strange things,” says of the Shrew that “it is a ravening beast, 
feigning itself gentle and tame, but, being touched, it biteth deep 
and poysoneth deadly. It beareth a cruel minde, desiring to hurt 
anything, neither is there any creature that it loveth, or it loveth 
him, because it is feared of all.’ It is probable that all this 
rustic feeling is due to the powerful effluyium which the Shrew 
undoubtedly emits. 
S. minutus has the distinction of being the smallest British 
mammal; it is scarcer than the last. This form is found upon 
the Alps, as is also the peculiarly Alpine species S. a/pinus, which 
inhabits the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Hartz. 
Crossopus fodiens, the Water Shrew, has also brown-stained 
teeth. It is not uncommon in this country, and lives in burrows 
excavated by the sides of the streams which it affects. 
Besides these two genera, Soriculus, Blarina, and Notiosorex 
have red-tipped teeth. In Crocidura, Myosorex, Diplomesodon, 
Anurosorexz, Chimarrogale, and Nectogale the teeth are white- 
tipped. These are all the genera of the family allowed by the 
late Dr. Dobson in a review of that family.’ 
Chimarrogale and Nectogale are aquatic genera. The former 
1 « A Synopsis of the Genera of the Family Soricidae,” Proc. Zool. Soc. 1890, 
p. 49. 
