- 11 



V ERTEBRATA. 





w \ iiu-sukews. 



not cal these animals, on account of their musky smell, kestrels and owls are known to prey upon 

 them. 



Shrews are very pugnacious : if two be confined in a box together, but a very short time elaps • 

 before the weaker of the two is killed and partly devoured. Their nest, -which is formed of soft 

 grasses and other plants, is generally found in a hole more or less shallow, in the ground, or a dry 

 bank, and is entered at the side, being, so to speak, roofed over. Here the female produces in 

 the spring from five to seven little shrews. 



Among the ancients, the shrew-mouse had a very bad reputation. Thus Aristotle declares that 



its bite is dangerous to horses and other beasts of burden ; and that it is more dangerous if the 



animal be with young. The bite, he says, causes boils, and these burst, if the shrew-mouse be 



rnant when she inflicts the wound; but if she be not, they do not burst. Pliny states that 



the bite of the Italian shrew-mouse is venomous. Agricola tells us that its bite in warm regions 



2 nerally pestiferous, but that in cold climates it is not, — consoling those who may suffer by it 

 that the animal itself, torn asunder or dissected and placed upon the wound, is a remedy for its 

 own \enom. It is difficult to account for such widely extended prejudices. It appears that even 

 to our English ancestors this graceful and harmless little animal was also an object of fear and 

 superstition. 



The S. crassicaudus is of a larger size than the preceding, and found in Egypt. It seems to 

 have been one of the sacred animals of Ancient Egypt, for it is found among the preserved mum* 

 mies in great numbers. As these are at least three thousand years old, and the skeletons are pre- 

 cisely similar to those of the species now existing, and as this fait coincides with others, natural- 

 ists draw tin- inference that the form and structure of most animals are permanent, or at least 

 subject to small modifications. There were probably several other species of sorex thus religiously 

 preserved by tin- Egyptians. 



The S. Jlavescens, <■<' the Cape of Good Hope, is white, tinged with fawn; the S. herpestes, S. 

 cyaneu8, S. capensaides, and S. gracilis, axe of the same localitv; the S. Etruscus is found in Italy 

 and Prance, and is a very diminutive species, not over an inch and a half long. A similar species 

 is found in Algeria. The S. Perrottetii, very small, is found in the loth plateaux of India, near 

 Pondicherry. A similar one, S. Modogoacarienm, is found in Madagascar. The S. m>/osurus, 

 or Rat-tailed Shrew of India, is differently named by different authors; it is noted for its in- 

 tense musky odor. In India there are other species of shrew, of which little is known. One 

 is called S. oiyantexs by Geoffroy, and F. Cuvier speaks of one under the name of S. Montjourou. 



