424 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. XI. 



Short-tailed Shrew {Blarina brevicauda). 



The Short-tailed Shrew occurs commonly throughout Wisconsin 

 and northern Illinois, but it apparently intergrades with the smaller, 

 southern race, B. brevicauda carolinensis, in the central part of the latter 

 state. The average measurements, as given by Wood, of 39 specimens 

 from Warren, Iroquois and Champaign counties are as follows: Total 

 length, 4.49 in. (113 mm.); tail vertebrae, .90 in. (22.68 mm.). 



The Short -tailed Shrew, or Mole Shrew as it is often called, makes 

 its home under decayed logs and old piles of brush. It constructs 

 tunnels and runways under leaves, moss and in loose soil, the bur- 

 rows usually being shallow and near the surface of the ground. It 

 is both nocturnal and diurnal and its food consists largely of slugs, 

 worms and insects of various kinds, but it also eats flesh of other ani- 

 mals and does not hesitate to attack a Mouse larger than itself. Ac- 

 cording to Prof. E. D. Cope a Shrew has been known to attack and kill 

 a snake two feet in length. He says: ''I recently placed a water-snake 

 {Tropidonotus sipedon) of two feet in length, in a fernery which was 

 inhabited by a shrew, either a large Blarina carolinensis or a small 

 Blarina talpoides. The snake was vigorous when placed in the case 

 in the afternoon and bit at everything within reach. The next morn- 

 ing the glass sides of his prison were streaked with dirt and other 



