22 THJE MA:\nlALIA OF DORSETSHiRt. 



interesting to see it stand on its hind legs and pull down the 

 cobwebs, which it eagerly searched for insects or spiders. They 

 are very pugnacious, and when two meet in a run a battle royal 

 ensues, which ends in the death of one of the combatants. In 

 the mating season it often happens that fatal battles ensue 

 between the rivals, which fight on the surface of the ground, 

 which accounts for dead moles being occasionally found. 

 Keenness of sight not being required in the darkness of its 

 underground chambers, that sense is reduced to a minimum of 

 development ; but, contrary to popular belief, the animal is not 

 blind, although the eyes are very minute and buried in the fur 

 which surrounds them. Virgil, of old, wrote: "The blind 

 moles have dug their holes." English naturalists were wont 

 to say that, although Virgil was a very good poet, he was no 

 naturalist. It has since been found that Virgil was right after 

 all, as the Italian mole is a different species from our British 

 one, and actually has no eyes. 



Family SORICIDiE. 

 Genus SOREX. 



Common Shrew, or -Shrew-crop, Sorcx vulgaris. 



This timid little animal is perfectly harmless, though we 

 still retain a name for it expressive of something malignant 

 and spiteful. Its bite was considered by the ancients as 

 peculiarly noxious, even to horses and large cattle, and the 

 most extraordinary remedies for the wound and preventives 

 against it are mentioned by Pliny and others. Even in modern 

 times a person is thought to go lame for life if a shrew runs over 

 his or her foot. As it gambols through our hedgerows, hunting 

 for insects, and rustles about the dry foliage, the shrew gives 

 forth a shrill squeaking sound, and on this account some women 

 are called shrews from their shrill squeaking voice in scolding. 

 There is a popular belief that shrew-crops cannot cross public 

 ways without incurring instant death. This is occasioned by the 



