68 'WEE TIM'ROUS BEASTIES' 



black variety of this vole, at one time thought to 

 be specifically distinct, appears to be here pre- 

 dominant, as is indeed not unusual in the north 

 and west. 



An addition has recently been made to our 

 British fauna by the discovery by Mr. J. Millais 

 of a distinct species of vole in Orkney ; but this 

 is of course outside our limits. 



The little mouse-coloured creature with the 

 long-pointed snout peering over the edge of the 

 bank belongs to a different family, Insectivora, 

 and will at once be generally recognised as the 

 common shrew, Sorex tetragonuriis, which is to 

 be found all over the mainland. As to the 

 Islands, it has been reported from Tobermory 

 and from I slay, but not from the Outer Islands. 

 The shrews feed on all manner of insects, slugs 

 and worms, and are decidedly carnivorous in 

 their tastes and quarrelsome in disposition. Our 

 superstitious forefathers believed that they were 

 capable of injuring cattle by running over their 

 limbs, the cure for such ailment being to stroke 

 the affected parts with a branch of a ' shrew-ash.' 

 As we know from Gilbert White, 1 a shrew-ash 

 was a tree in which an auger-hole had been 

 bored, into which a poor little living shrew was 

 inserted and the hole plugged up ! Such an 



1 Natural History of Selborne. 



