102 MIGRATION OF RATS. 



the smooth horsetail (equisetum limosum). This con- 

 stituted the food of the creatures, and the noise made 

 by their champing it we could distinctly hear in the 

 evening at many yards' distance. They were shot by 

 dozens daily ; yet the survivors seemed quite regardless 

 of the noise, the smoke, the deaths, around them. Be- 

 fore the winter, this great herd disappeared, and so 

 entirely evacuated the place, that a few years after I 

 could not obtain a single specimen. They did not dis- 

 perse, for the animal is seldom found in the neighbor- 

 hood, and no dead bodies were observed. They had 

 certainly made this place a temporary station in their 

 progress from some other; but how such large com- 

 panies can change their situations unobserved in their 

 transits, is astonishing. Birds can move in high regions 

 and in obscurity, and are not commonly objects of 

 notice; but quadrupeds can travel only on the ground, 

 and would be regarded with wonder, when in great 

 numbers, by the rudest peasant.* 



That little animal the water shrew (sorex fodiens) 

 appears to be but partially known, but is probably more 

 generally diffused than we imagine. The common 

 shrew in particular seasons gambols through our hedge- 

 rows,, squeaking and rustling about the dry foliage, and 

 is observed by every one ; but the water shrew inhabits 

 places that secrete it from general notice, and appears 

 to move only in the evenings, which occasions its being 

 so seldom observed. That this creature was an occa- 



* As an event connected with the subject of temporary augmenta- 

 tion and diminution of creatures, I may be pardoned for noting the 

 predominant increase of sex in some years. The most remarkable 

 instance, that I remember of late, was in 1825. How far it extended 

 I do not know, but for many miles round us we had in that year 

 scarcely any female calves born. Dairies of forty or fifty cows pro- 

 duced not more than five or six, those of inferior numbers, in the 

 same proportion, and the price of female calves for rearing was 

 greatly augmented. In the wild state, an event like this would have 

 considerable influence upon the usual product of some future herd. 

 In the ensuing spring, we had in the village an extraordinary instance 

 of fecundity in the sheep afforded us, one farmer having an increase 

 of sixteen lambs from five ewes, four of which produced three each, 

 and one brought forth four; however, only a small portion of these 

 little creatures lived to maturity. 



