MAMMALS SORICINAE BLARINA TALPOIDES. 



39 



yellowish white ; whiskers grayish ; tail uniformly dusky. This is also the case with speci 

 mens from Massachusetts, Carlisle, Racine, and most localities generally. One specimen 

 from Eacine has much the same ground color, but intermixed are many hairs of a silvery 

 grayish, imparting quite a hoary appearance. This is also seen in one specimen from Ann 

 Arbor, Michigan, and is probably the winter condition of the pelage. A specimen from West 

 Northfield, Illinois, has the chin and tip of tail white ; the teeth are all colored at the ends, 

 dark reddish or purplish brown, the tips of the long incisors nearly black ; the small premolar 

 is alone entirely white. 



A specimen from Holmes' Hole, Massachusetts, (903,) belonging to the Boston Natural His 

 tory Society, is of a very pale, brownish chestnut above, fading to the belly into a still paler tint 

 of the same. The colors, however, are such as might be the result of a partial bleaching, espe 

 cially of a specimen preserved in alcohol impregnated with corrosive sublimate, and exposed to 

 the light. I have seen precisely this tint produced in moles, under the circumstances here 

 supposed. 



As it is a matter of much importance to define the characters of this species, the most abun 

 dant of the North American shrews, I have appended the following very full table of measure 

 ments to illustrate the variations in size and proportions to which it is subject. 



Measurements. (A . ) 



