Feb., 1912. Mammals of Illinois and Wisconsin — Cory. 413 



the eye rests upon a fallen leaf that seems to move. Presently another 

 stirs and perhaps a third leaf turns completely over. Then something 

 evanescent, like the shadow of an embryonic mouse, appears and 

 vanishes before the retina can catch its perfect image. Anon, the 

 restless phantom flits across the open space, leaving no trace behind. 

 But a charge of fine shot, dropped with quick aim upon the next leaf 

 that moves will usually solve the mystery. The author of the per- 

 plexing commotion is found to be a curious, sharp-nosed creature no 

 bigger than one's little finger, and weighing hardly more than a dram. 

 Its ceaseless activity, and the rapidity with which it darts from place 

 to place, is truly astonishing, and rarely permits the observer a correct 

 impression of its form."* 



Herrick gives an interesting description of the action of a pair of 

 these Shrews which he observed at night in Pine Co., Minnesota. He 

 says: ^'To a person alone in the woods for the first time after a long 

 interval every sound is novel and more or less charged with mystery. 

 The wind stirred the tree tops and impinging boughs clattered and the 

 trunks groaned under the tortion, each tree with its own doleful note. 

 The few remaining pines added their sighing to the many melancholy 

 sounds belonging to the autumn forest at night. But amid all the 

 sounds nothing could be identified as coming from anything living, 

 even the distant howling of wolves was silenced, and I began to feel 

 that the attempt to gain personal knowledge of the ways of woodsy 

 mammals by night study would prove futile, and composed myself to 

 sleep. The half -somnolent revery which forms the prelude to slumber, 

 was broken by faint melodious sounds on an excessively high key — so 

 high that it seemed that I might be simply hearing the lower notes 

 of an elfin symphony, the upper registers in which were beyond the 

 powers of human ears to distinguish. The sounds were distinctly 

 musical and reminded me of the contented twitter of birds finding 

 resting places among the boughs at night. Without moving I turned 

 my eyes upon the fire-lit circle, about which the darkness formed an 

 apparently impenetrable wall. Only the most careful scrutiny enabled 

 me to discover the tiny musicians. Within a few feet of my head, upon 

 a decayed log, raced a pair of shrews (S. cooperi), so minute as to escape 

 my observation at first. Up and down with the most sprightly imag- 

 inable motions they ran, twittering incessantly. Hither and thither 

 they scampered over my clothing and almost into my pockets, like 

 veritable lilliputians, seizing now a crumb of cheese, with which my 

 traps were baited, and now a bit of fish fallen from my improvised 

 supper table" (/. c, p. 41). 



* Mamm. Adirondack Reg., 1886, p. 174. 



