THE SHREW 69 



ash existed at Selborne Church as lately as 1770, 

 or thereabouts. A curious and as yet unex- 

 plained fatality seems to attend the shrew 

 family in autumn, when numbers of them are 

 yearly found lying dead on roads and footpaths, 

 outwardly uninjured. If some of these were 

 sent to a competent authority, such as the Royal 

 Museum of Edinburgh, for post-mortem exami- 

 nation, the mystery might be solved. 



A pair of very tiny animals sitting among the 

 herbage in a little hollow always attract atten- 

 tion, and are generally supposed to be half- 

 grown specimens of the preceding species ; such, 

 however, is not the case. These little creatures, 

 the lesser or 'pygmy' shrew, Sorex pygmaeus, are 

 the smallest not only of Scottish, but of European 

 mammals ; somewhat smaller than the harvest- 

 mouse mentioned above. Only some two inches 

 in length of head and body, with a tail about the 

 same in length, they are rather rougher in the 

 coat, and especially in the tail, than the common 

 shrew, from which they also differ in dentition; 

 in colour they are much the same, somewhat 

 lighter in the under parts, perhaps ; but all the 

 shrews are liable to considerable differences in 

 colour. 



There is still much to be done in ascertaining 

 its distribution throughout the country. First 



