294 THE MOUNTAIN. 



remaining in a torpid dozy state, fill the air of those caverns 

 with a peculiar and offensive odor. 



The different species hybernate together. In the openings 

 of the woods on the mountain during the summer, they are 

 seen in numbers circling about in pursuit of their prey. 

 They pass the day in the loose bark of, and hollows in, the 

 trees. 



SHREWS. 



SUB-ORDER INSECTIVORA, (Family Soricidse.) 



Genus SOREX, (Linn.) Species Fimbripes, (Bach.) 

 The fringed shrew is quoted by Baird* as being found on 

 the Alleghany Mountain in Pennsylvania. The specimen 

 referred to was sent by Professor Johnson to the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



De Kay enumerates a list of several species of the genus 

 Sorex, whose geographic range would include Pennsylvania. 

 These are " Sorex de Kayi," to which he gives a range of 

 "Atlantic States from Massachusetts to Yirginia," " Sorex 

 brevicaudus," " Sorex parvus," "Sorex Carolinensis," (which 

 he admits to be extremely doubtful,) and " Sorex Fosteri." 

 The last named, or " Foster's shrew," is said to be found as 

 far north as the sixty-seventh parallel, and was observed by 

 Richardson where the thermometer descended to forty and 

 fifty degrees below zero. It is an inhabitant of the moun- 

 tain, and is the animal which makes tracks in the snow with a 

 groove made by its tail between the foot-prints. It constructs 

 tunnels through the snow on the surface of the ground, fre- 

 quently several yards in length, which, when the snow is 

 melted, remain icy tubes, curved and twisted in all direc- 

 tions. An intrepid and hardy little Esquimaux, no intensity 

 of cold prevents him from leaving his mark on every snow 

 that falls. 



SOREX platyrhinus. Baird gives this species a Pennsyl- 



* Mammals of North America, by S. F. Baird, Smithsonian Insti- 

 tute, Pacific report, vol. viii. 



