62 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



worms form no inconsiderable part of the food of the 

 hedge-hog, and that they are enabled to detect them 

 by the smell, and to extract them from the ground 

 with their snout, after the same manner that the hog 

 uses his in searching for buried food. In the above 

 instance no attempt was made to kill the worm 

 before eating it ; but that part of the poor creature 

 which was still out of the mouth of the hedge-hog 

 kept up a perpetual writhing as the nibbling of its 

 other extremity proceeded. 



COMMON SHREW.* 



THE extreme voracity of the mole is well known.f 

 The shrew, which belongs to the same natural group 

 as the mole (the insectivorous carnivora), would seem 

 to resemble it in this peculiarity, according to a 

 statement furnished to me by my esteemed friend 

 Mr. Selby, of Twizell. He observes in a letter re- 

 ceived February, 1843: "What greedy gluttonous 

 animals the shrews appear to be ! One was caught 



* Sorex tetragonurus, Herm. 



f- Mr. Bell, in his British Quadrupeds, quoting from Geoffrey 

 St. Hilaire, says, ft The mole does not exhibit the appetite of 

 hunger as we find it in other animals ; it amounts in it to a degree 

 of frenzy. The animal, when under its influence, is violently 

 agitated ; it throws itself on its prey as if maddened with rage ; 

 its gluttony disorders all its faculties, and nothing seems to stand 

 in the way of its intense voracity." 



Mr. Jesse also observes, that, " as soon as the mole is caught 

 and placed in a box, it will begin to feed with the utmost uncon- 

 cern." Gleanings in Nat. Hist. (3rd Ser.) p. 167. 



