THE FETID SHREW. 227 



it will root with its snout, like the Hog, for food. 

 It is generally considered to live on corn, worms, 

 insects, and the larva of insects, the latter of which 

 it finds in abundance in decayed dung. It runs 

 more slowly than the Common Mouse; and on this 

 account is easily overtaken, when pursued on open 

 ground. Its voice is a kind of shrill chirp or 

 whistle, not unlike that of some species of grass- 

 hopper. 



The odour of these Shrews is musky, and so very 

 disagreeable, that although Cats are often knowa 

 to destroy them in great numbers, they will never 

 eat the bodies. To this nauseous smell, and well- 

 known aversion, is probably owing the ridiculous 

 notion, prevalent among the common people of 

 most parts of Great Britain, that the Fetid Shrew is 

 a venomous animal; and that, in particular, its bite 

 is hurtful to Horses. When a Horse, in the field, hap- 

 pened to be suddenly seized with any thing like a 

 numbness in his limbs, he was immediately judged, 

 by the old farriers, to be either planet-struck or shrew- 

 run. The mode of cure which they prescribed, 

 and which they considered as in all cases infallible, 

 was to drag the animal through a piece of a bram- 

 ble that grew at both ends. Had any of these sages 

 in horse-medicine taken the trouble to have ex- 

 amined the mouth of a Shrew, they would have 

 found it so small as by no means to be capable of 

 admitting double the thickness of any part of a 

 Q 2 Horse's 



