PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE MAMMALS OF NEW YORK 359 
“ Nearly a year later on August 1, 1896 I caught a second specimen of 
this shrew on Mt Marcy, the highest of the Adirondack mountains . . . 
It was taken in a crevice between some rocks on the bare open summit 
of the mountain about 5300 feet above sea-level. The locality where 
the first one was captured is about eight miles distant in an air line and 
lies at an elevation of only 1300 feet above the sea” ('96b, p. 133). 
Mearns: “The [eight] specimens were trapped in hollows under mossy 
stones and stumps usually in wet balsam or spruce woods or in weedy 
swamps. The lowest place where it was taken was in a balsam swamp 
at about 3700 feet altitude, others were caught somewhat higher in a 
sparsely wooded swamp densely overgrown with asters (Aster puniceus) 
then in bloom, and four were trapped on the top of Hunter mountain 
(altitude 4024 feet)” (’98b p. 356). 
Sorex personatus I. Geoffroy St Hilaire d/asked shrew 
1827 Sorex personatus | Geoffroy St Hilaire, Mem. du mus. d’hist. nat. 
IPB VOSS | sats Barb, 
1842 Sorex forsteri De Kay, Zoology of New York, Mammalia. p. 4o. 
1842 Otisorex platyrhinus De Kay, Zoology of New York, Mammalia. 
[Do BB 
1884 Sorex coopert Merriam, Linn. soc. New York. Trans. 2:75. 
1895 Sorex personatus Miller, North American fauna. no. to. 
31 Dec. 1895. p. 53. 
1896 Sorex personatus Fisher, The Observer. May 1896. 7: 194. 
1898 Sorex personatus Mearns, U.S. Nat. mus. Proc. 21 : 355. 
1898 Sorex personatus Mearns, Am. mus, nat. hist. Bul. g Sep. 1898. 
Tee Byles 
Type locality. “astern United States possibly somewhere in New York. 
Faunal position. Boreal and transition zones ; cool localities in upper 
austral zone. 
Habitat. Open or wooded places both wet and dry. 
Distribution in New York. The masked shrew probably occurs 
throughout the state. 
Principal records. De Kay: ‘They are found in ail parts of the 
state” (’42, p. 21). Merriam: “This diminutive shrew, the smallest 
known mammalian inhabitant of the Adirondacks, is quite common in 
most parts of the region but much more abundant some years than 
others” (84d, p. 75). Fisher: “The common shrew is rather rare and 
is the only one of the long-tailed species found in the neighborhood [of 
Sing Sing]. Its scarcity however may be only apparent and due wholly 
