113 



so soon after the eggs were taken, pointed to it as the original 

 offender, but the opening beneath the eggs resembled more 

 nearly the operations of a shrew. 



Vegetable Foods. Instances of shrews eating vegetable 

 matter have several times been recorded, but the known cases 

 of such food being taken by the species under consideration are 

 very rare. I have had specimens in captivity, when deprived of 

 other food, to store a considerable quantity of grains of corn and 

 nut meats about their nests, but could never discover that they 

 ate of either. In two cases shrews have died of starvation with 

 an abundance of corn, nut meats, and potatoes in their cages. 

 I once found a branched piece of fibrous root in the stomach of 

 a shrew, but the root was thread-like and less than an inch long, 

 and might easily have been swallowed by accident in taking 

 other food. 



It is quite certain that so little vegetable substance of any 

 kind is normally eaten by them that the question is hardly worth 

 considering from an economic standpoint. 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 



The strong odor which the shrews exhale seems to inhibit 

 larger animals of prey from eating them except when other 

 food is scarce. It is doubtful, though, if this odor often pre- 

 vents their being killed by such animals, for it seems to be the 

 practice of several species to kill and then throw them aside. It 

 is a common thing for domestic cats to bring shrews in from 

 their hunts and leave them lying about uneaten. Foxes ar"3 

 known to have the same habit, and this may also be true of 

 some species of birds. 



In the summer of 1893 I found the den of a red fox that 

 proved to be the home of an old female and five half -grown 

 cubs. The den was under a large stone and all about the place 

 were scattered feathers, bones and other remnants of animal 

 food, the most conspicuous being the dead bodies of short-tailed 

 shrews. I did not count them, but there must have been twenty 

 or thirty in sight. The mother fox had evidently brought them 



