26 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



of the Common Shrew, and until recent years was considered 

 to be only the juvenile form of that species, for which, no 

 doubt, it is still mistaken frequently. It appears to be widely 

 distributed in Britain, but is local, the areas in which it occurs 

 being limited and patchy when marked on the map. These are 

 mostly in wooded districts, but extend from sea-level to the tops 

 of our highest mountains, for it has been found on Ben Nevis 

 at a height of 4,400 feet. In Ireland, from which the Common 

 Shrew is entirely absent, its place is taken by the Lesser 

 Shrew, though it is not nearly so abundant as the Common 

 Shrew is in Britain. 



Seen side by side these two species are sufficiently distinct, 

 but apart they may be taken as identical. The earlier British 

 naturalists had not learned to discriminate one from the other, 

 and even Bell, as late as 1837, does not mention the Lesser 

 Shrew, though in the second edition of his work (1874) it 

 appears in a description by Alston. If we take average length 

 of head and body in an adult Common Shrew as three inches, 

 we shall find that a similar individual of the Lesser Shrew 

 measures only two inches and a quarter a reduction of 25 

 per cent. The hind foot without the claws in the Common 

 Shrew is half an inch, but in the Lesser Shrew it is one-sixth 

 less. The actual length of the tail is about the same in both 

 species, but proportionately there is a difference, for whilst that 

 of the Common Shrew only equals half the length of head and 

 body, in the Lesser Shrew it is equal to two-thirds. But it has 

 been held that the length of the hind feet alone is distinctive, 

 and that " any Shrew in which these reach or exceed 12 milli- 

 metres may be set down as of the larger species." 



The colour of the fur is the brown and white of the common 

 species with a fairly sharp line of demarcation between them. 

 Though the animal as a whole is more delicately built, the 

 snout is relatively longer and thicker ; the tail also thicker 

 and more hairy ; the forearm and hand are shorter. The 



