MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. 41 



superficial characters with no reference to tangible anatomical 

 distinctions has multiplied synonyms to such an extent that no 

 person can ever disentangle the synonomy. At present we can 

 form only very vague ideas as to the actual number of species 

 in several genera. As far as the systematic study is concerned, 

 all that has thus far been written is so much profitless lumber 

 and might best be ignored. Facts regarding the habits, anat- 

 my and geographical distribution, on the other hand, are of 

 permanent and immediate value. 



In November, 1883, the writer lay encamped under the canopy 

 of the sky in Pine Co., Minnesota, endeavoring to escape the 

 chill of the frosty air by drawing the blanket close and hover- 

 ing nearer the camp fire. To a person alone in the woods for 

 the first time after a long interval every sound is novel and 

 more or less charged with mystery. The wind stirred the tree 

 tops and impinging boughs clattered and the trunks groaned 

 under the tortion, each tree with its own doleful note. The 

 few remaining pines added their sighing to the many melan- 

 choly sounds belonging to an autumn forest at night. But 

 amid all the sounds nothing could be identified as coming from 

 anything living, even the distant howling of wolves was 

 silenced, and I began to feel that the attempt to gain personal 

 knowledge of the ways of woodsy mammals by night study 

 would prove futile, and composed myself to sleep. The half- 

 somnolent re very which forms the prelude to slumber, was 

 broken by faint melodious sounds on an excessively high key 

 so high that it seemed that I might be simply hearing the 

 lower notes of an elfin symphony the upper registers in which 

 were beyond the powers of human ears to distinguish. The 

 sounds were distinctly musical and reminded me of the con- 

 tented twitter of birds finding resting places among the boughs 

 at night. Without moving I turned my eyes upon the fire-lit 

 circle, about which the darkness formed an apparently impen- 

 trable wall. Only the most careful scrutiny enabled me to dis- 

 cover the tiny musicians. Within a few feet of my head, upon 

 a decayed log, raced a pair of shrews (S. cooperi), so minute as 

 to escape my observation at first. Up and down with the most 

 sprightly imaginable motions they ran, twittering incessantly. 

 Hither and thither they scampered over my clothing and almost 

 into my pockets, like veritable lilliputians, siezing now a 

 crumb of cheese, with which my traps were baited, and now a 

 bit of fish fallen from my improvised supper table. During 

 the eating the conversation was not interrupted. The little 



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