WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



For instance, I opened twenty-eight castings 

 taken from beneath the roosting-place of a barn 

 owl, and found the bones of forty-four common 

 shrews, two pigmy shrews, twenty-seven field 

 voles, five bank voles, nine long-tailed mice, 

 eighteen house mice, and seven young rats, 

 also the remains of three birds. This was what 

 the bird had caught in twenty-eight nights, for 

 each casting was the result of a night's hunting. 

 Considering what a fragile little animal the 

 lesser shrew is, it is wonderfully plucky, and to 

 see one attacking a black beetle, which com- 

 pared with the shrew was no small insect, was 

 an amusing sight. It was a very active beetle, 

 one of those hard, shiny kinds, that can run 

 almost as fast as a mouse, but after a short chase 

 the shrew had it, though the beetle struggled 

 frantically, and it seemed to me that it gave 

 the shrew several nips on its long nose ! At 

 last the shrew got a good grip of it and held 

 it down, and while it was still kicking began to 

 eat its soft parts. The beetle was then made 

 short work of, and soon only its hard fore-part 

 and shiny wing cases were left. This same 

 lesser shrew would rush at a worm at least five 

 times longer than itself and which appeared 

 much stronger, seize it by the tail, spring out 

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