28 INSECTIVOEA 



of their assumption need not be questioned, it should be 

 remembered that it was based on very scanty data ; and it is 

 to be regretted that during the nineteen years which have 

 since elapsed our knowledge of the animal's actual distribu- 

 tion in the country has received scarcely any substantial 

 increase. By the uninitiated the Lesser Shrew is hardly 

 likely to be distinguished from the common species ; but our 

 present ignorance of its precise range north of the Tweed is 

 not creditable to Scottish field-naturalists. 



During the winter of 1888-89, I gave the ferryman at 

 Cramond a few traps, which he set in and about his garden, 

 on the Linlithgow side of the Almond. Among other things, 

 he captured three examples of this tiny quadruped, one of 

 which the first recorded from this district was exhibited 

 by me at a meeting of the Eoyal Physical Society on 20th 

 March 1889. In the course of last winter (1890-91) three 

 or four others, captured by the Messrs Campbell a little 

 farther west in Dalmeny Park, have passed through my 

 hands ; and from what Mr M'Leish, mole-catcher, Millburn, 

 near Corstorphine, tells me, there can be no doubt he has 

 observed it in his neighbourhood. On 22nd November 1890 

 Mr Eagle Clarke captured one in the daytime on the northern 

 slopes of the Pentlands, at Colzium, as recorded in the 

 "Scottish Naturalist" for January 1891, page 36 ; and on 25th 

 February Mr T. Gr. Laidlaw brought me another which his 

 brother had trapped the previous day at Hallmyre, near 

 West Linton, Peeblesshire. According to Alston ("Fauna 

 West of Scotland," p. v), it is not uncommon in the Upper 

 Ward of Lanarkshire. 



As these pages are passing through the press, I learn from 

 Mr Eagle Clarke that a specimen has been sent to him by Mr 

 Wm. Berry of Tayfield, Newport, who captured it on 2nd 

 November (1891) on Tentsmuir, Fife. 



