Common Shrew 
». Florida Brown Shrew. B. floridana Merriam. Rather larger, 
with narrower skull and white teeth. 
Range. Tropical Florida. 
Common Shrew 
Sorex personatus Geoffroy 
Called also Long-tailed Shrew, Shrew Mouse. 
Length. 3.75 inches. 
Description. Small and slender, with a long-pointed snout sup- 
porting long ‘‘ whiskers.” Tail nearly as long as the head 
and body. Colour dark-brown above, hairs slaty at their 
base, brighter on the rump, and shading gradually to gray 
on the underside. 
Range. Canada to Indiana and southern New Jersey, and in the 
Alleghanies to North Carolina. A somewhat similar shrew 
is found in the low ground in North Carolina and several 
others in the North. (See below). 
The common shrew or shrew mouse is a smaller and much 
more attractive little animal than the short-tailed shrew. The 
smaller varieties are easily the smallest of our quadrupeds; a 
common mouse looks overgrown and clumsy beside one of them. 
Shrew mice are active throughout the winter, skipping about 
over the surface of the snow from tree to tree, poking their 
delicate, proboscis-like noses into crevices of the bark, and in- 
vestigating the dark interiors of hollow trees at the bottoms of 
which they have to root about in the crumbling wood and 
vegetable mould for their accustomed prey. 
Underneath wood piles and logs are favourite haunts of these 
funny little beasts, and | believe that it is in such places as 
these that they bring up their families. Both in winter and 
summer they appear to prefer the neighbourhood of such little 
streams as neither freeze nor become stagnant at either season. 
Like all of the tribe of insect eaters this little shrew finds 
the summer drought the most disastrous season of the year; at 
such times many of them perish, evidently from thirst. 
I have never had an opportunity of observing their method 
of hunting in warm weather. All the living specimens that | 
have found, except in winter, were crouching beneath old boards 
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