Common Shrew 



or wood piles, but knowing their choice of food and the places 

 they inhabit and their quaint way of getting about, it is easy 

 to imagine them stalking crickets and beetles in the shade of 

 the humbler growth of the forest. No doubt they get lots of 

 fun and breathless excitement and suspense before certain of the 

 larger and more active insects are subdued. With the exception 

 of some of the weasels they are perhaps the most hot blooded, 

 energetic, excitable little beasts alive. 



Dr. Merriam, speaking of their voracious habits, states that he 

 once confined three of these restless little beasts under an ordinary 

 tumbler. " Almost immediately they commenced fighting, and in 

 a few minutes one was slaughtered and eaten by the other two. 

 Before night one of them killed and ate its only surviving com- 

 panion, and its abdomen was much distended by the meal. 

 Hence in less than eight hours one of these tiny wild beasts 

 had attacked, overcome, and ravenously consumed two of its 

 own species, each as large and heavy as itself." Of the rapid 

 progress of the shrew when at large, he says, "if one is sitting 

 quietly in the woods it sometimes happens that a slight rust- 

 ling reaches the ear. There is no wind but the eye rests upon 

 a fallen leaf that seems to move. Presently another stirs and 

 perhaps a third turns completely over. Then something evan- 

 escent, like the shadow of an embryonic mouse, appears and 

 vanishes before the retina can catch its perfect image .... 

 Its ceaseless activity, and the rapidity with which it darts from 

 place to place is truly astonishing, and rarely permits the observer 

 a correct impression of its form." 



I have never seen a live marsh-shrew though I have hunted 

 and set traps for them along various little brooks and similar 

 moist and watery places. It would appear that they occupy 

 much the same position among the shrews that minks and otters 

 hold in the weasel tribe, swimming about or diving beneath the 

 surface for minnows or water beetles, or racing along the margin 

 to stop here and there to overturn wet leaves or dig in the 

 mud for worms. 



Tadpoles and caddis worms and the multitudinous variety of 

 wriggling larvae that inhabit the bottoms of little brooks must 

 furnish them with sufficient food at all seasons. In all likelihood 

 they also make frequent excursions to higher and drier ground 

 as the whim seizes them. 



