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OF SHREWS IN GENERAL. 



THESE animals are nearly allied both to the Moles 

 and Mice. Like the former, they have a carti- 

 laginous moveable snout,, formed by an elongation 

 of the parts surrounding the upper jaw, of use for 

 rooting up the ground in search of food. But they 

 differ from them in having their anterior feet re- 

 sembling the posterior ones, instead of being broad 

 and palmated. Their eyes, though very small, are 

 easily discernible. In the general appearance of 

 their head, therefore, and also in many of their 

 habits of life, they resemble the Moles ; but in the 

 structure, though not the arrangement of their 

 teeth, in the general form of their bodies, and par- 

 ticularly in that of their feet, they exhibit a close 

 alliance to the Murine quadrupeds. 



All the Shrews burrow, with great ease, into the 

 ground, where, for the most part, they live out of 

 the sight of men, and sheltered from the observa- 

 tion of such animals as otherwise would destroy 

 them in great numbers, Their habitations are ge- 

 nerally not far distant from the banks of rivers or 

 other streams; and many of the species are able to 

 swim with great agility. They feed, for the most 

 part, on worms, and the larva of such insects as they 

 meet with in their progress through the ground. 



Q Their 



