THE SHREW-MOUSE. 15 



started as to the cause of its death. Some attribute it to 

 cats and owls mistaking it for the common mouse, and not 

 eating it on account of its peculiar smell. This may per- 

 haps apply to the cat, but not to the owl, as the bones and 

 skulls of the shrew-mice have been constantly found in the 

 owl's castings. The shrew-mouse is a most pugnacious 

 little beast ; may not the death be caused by a pitched 

 battle between two of them ? It appears that these little 

 animals are mostly found dead in the autumn. Bell says : 

 " The cause does not appear to be understood. So many may 

 be found at this season lying dead on footways or on bare 

 ground near their haunts, as to have led to the belief among 

 country people that the shrew could not cross a public way 

 without incurring instant death." 



A strange superstition formerly existed in regard to this 

 little harmless animal. It was supposed to be able to 

 inflict very great pain to cattle by running over them at 

 night when lying down, and the only specific against this 

 disease was whipping the afflicted beast with a branch 

 from what was called a shrew-ash. This particular tree 

 was to be found in many old villages. Gilbert White 

 mentions one on the Plestor at Selborne. The tree was 

 made by boring a hole in the trunk of a pollard or other 

 ash, and inserting into this hole a live shrew-mouse, and 

 then plugging the hole with a piece of the same tree. When 

 the mouse was supposed to be dead and its juices had 

 entered into the sap of the tree, then the branches were 

 fit for use. Plott, in his " History of Staffordshire," states 

 that some workmen sawing a trunk of solid oak cut 

 through the body of a hardishrew, or nursrow, as they call 

 them, i.e., a field-mouse, so that a shrew or nursrow tree 

 was not confined to the ash. 



In Broderip's "Zoological Recreations," p. 91, we find 

 the following : 



" The common shrew-mouse, one of the most harmless of 

 animals, was considered to be a very pernicious creature. 

 Its bite was held to be venomous by the ancients, and our 

 own ancestors believed that if a shrew-mouse ran over the 

 limbs of man or beast, paralysis of those limbs was the con- 



