CHAPTER IV 



SHREWS 



SHREWS are those little long-nosed mice of 

 which the cats catch and kill so many, though 

 they never eat them. They will catch them 

 and play with them by dozens, but from their 

 poor little bodies they turn away in disgust. 

 What it is that the cats dislike so much I 

 cannot say for certain, but think it must be 

 the curious musty smell of the shrews. If you 

 pick up a dead shrew and examine it, parting 

 the short velvet-like hair carefully behind its 

 shoulders, you will see a little mark, or gland, 

 from which oozes an oily matter, which makes 

 this smell. Though cats, dogs, and foxes will 

 not swallow shrews, owls and hawks will eat 

 them as readily as any other mice. 



As a matter of fact shrews are not mice at 

 all ; they are just shrews, and nothing more. 

 The true mice have two pair of sharp cutting 

 teeth, or incisors, in the front of their mouth 

 specially fitted for gnawing grain, and such 



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