107 



publish the final results of the work at some future time, it seems 

 desirable to give here only a few of the more significant obser- 

 vations that have thus far been made. 



DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE IN WEST VIRGINIA. 



In one of the quotations on a preceding page, S. N. Rhoads 

 states that in Pennsylvania and New Jersey the short-tailed 

 shrew is the most abundant of all native mammals, and Shull 

 in another quotation estimates their average number per acre, 

 for a point near Ann Arbor, Michigan, at four individuals. 

 These observations entirely coincide with my own made in West 

 Virginia. . I have found them very plentiful in fields and 

 woods about Morgantown, in the glade lands and woods near 

 Cowen, Webster County, in an old garden in Buckhannon, in a 

 cellar and various outdoor situations at French Creek, and in 

 other localities. 



On October 17th, 1907, I lifted a small board that had been 

 left lying on a bed of grass that grew in the corner of a fence 

 enclosing an orchard at French Creek. A well beaten runway 

 was noticed beneath, extending nearly the full length of the 

 board. With the hope of catching mice or shrews, I set a 

 mouse-trap in a little depression in the soil which I scooped out 

 so as to bisect the runway, and then replaced the board. Within 

 the next six days the trap caught nine shrews, and during the 

 same period one other was caught within a rod of the place. 

 This was proof that at least ten shrews had visited that partic- 

 ular rod of ground in one week, and there was good reason for 

 believing that still others had been about the traps, but had not 

 been caught. The trap under the board was baited with grains 

 of corn and meat so as to attract both mice and shrews, but at 

 the time only the one species was taken, though afterward 

 several meadow mice were caught at the same place. This is 

 only one of many examples that might be given to illustrate the 

 abundance of the shrews in West Virginia. 



