196 



ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



the number of shrew stomachs of various species which contained food 

 of the various sorts mentioned, and the percentage that each kind of 

 food contained bears to the total contents. 



FAMILY TUPAIIDAE TREE SHREWS 



This family is found from India and China to the Philippines, Java 

 and Sumatra. Their cheek teeth show that their food ''must be largely 

 insects. Many observers say they naturally eat fruit as well." All the 

 evidence seems to show that their food is chiefly insects, with some 

 fruit buds, fish and eggs, and one species is said by natives to kill small 

 birds, mice, etc. 37 They are closely related to an African terrestrial 

 family of Insectivora, the Macroscelididae. 



FAMILY ERINACEIDAE EUROPEAN HEDGEHOGS 



The hedgehogs are largely insectivorous, but take also any inverte- 

 brates and small vertebrates they can obtain, and even carrion. They 

 are included among the enemies of land snails. 38 "Hedgehog pie is ac- 

 counted very appetizing by the gypsies, who bake it in clay, the bristles 

 coming away with the clay covering*. Porcupines are cooked the same 



OQ 



way. 3 



ORDER CHIROPTERA BATS AND FLYING FOXES 

 Nearly all of the species of North American bats are very useful 

 creatures. Their food consists almost entirely of night-flying insects, 



87 Lyon, Tree shrews : An account of the mammalian family Tupaiidae, Proc. 

 U. S. Natl. Museum, XLV, 1-188, 1913. 



^Pilsbry and Bequaert, Bull. Amer. Museum Nat. Hist., LIII, 479, 1927. 

 39 Jennison, Natural history animals, p. 141, 1927. 



