OCTOBBE 9, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



529 



I 



a small garden toad, but allowed a large one 

 (40 grams est.) to remain in tlie box for five 

 bours unmolested, at the end of -which time 

 the toad was removed. 



Professor Cope^^ writes of a Carolina shrew 

 overcoming a water snake (Tropidonotus sipe- 

 don) two feet in length, in a night, which 

 shows the courage and fighting qualities of 

 this little beast. 



To test the keenness of the senses of this 

 shrew, a skin of a meadow jumping mouse 

 {Zapus hudsonius), dried some months previ- 

 ously, was placed in the box. It was at once 

 furiously attacked, but was removed as soon 

 as torn about the head, because of the pres- 

 ence of white arsenic inside. So vigorous was 

 the attack that the mouse skin was repeatedly 

 lifted from the floor with the shrew still cling- 

 ing on, biting and tearing. It would have 

 been interesting to see how long the ill- 

 directed attack would have been continued. 



Moles and shrews have been often accused, 

 by farmers especially, of being agents of de- 

 struction about gardens and of subsisting on 

 the vegetable food found there. In all prob- 

 ability the only damage committed, by this 

 species of shrew at least, is done indirectly, as 

 referred to above, by disturbing roots while 

 burrowing about for insects or worms. The 

 following experiment, which bears on this 

 matter, was carried out with the same results 

 on two different occasions. The box being 

 cleared of all food, the following twenty-one 

 varieties of common vegetable matter, most of 

 it freshly gathered, were put in : cabbage, 

 cauliflower, lettuce, potato, carrot, parsnip, 

 string-bean, pole-bean, summer squash, turnip, 

 beet, sweet com, rhubarb, kohlrabi, tomato, 

 cucumber, peach, pear, canteloupe, banana and 

 olive. At the end of nine hours (first experi- 

 ment), the shrew was found curled up in one 

 corner of the box, weak and listless, while not 

 one of the vegetables had been touched, with 

 the exception of the olive, which had been 

 nibbled. (This may have been eaten to get the 

 salt, as the olive had been kept in brine.) 



11 Cope, " On a Habit of a Species of Blarina, ' ' 

 Am. Nat., Vol. VII., No. 8, pp. 490-491, Aug., 

 1873. 



When the experiment was tried the second 

 time, the shrew remained eleven hours without 

 food, and showed quite a marked constriction 

 about his abdomen at the end of that time. 

 These results seem to vindicate the short- 

 tailed shrew from the charge of being a garden 

 thief. 



An exception to its non-vegetarian habits, 

 however, was found to be made in regard to 

 rolled oats. These it ate at first sparingly and 

 with little relish, but later lived on them ex- 

 clusively for fifty-two hours and at the end of 

 that time seemed as vigorous and contented 

 as ever. Seton speaks of taking a female short- 

 tailed shrew whose stomach was full of corn 

 meal unmixed, and owing to the unusually 

 slow process of putrefaction in the animal, he 

 reasons that it had been on that diet for som.e 

 time. Merriam writes of one he had in con- 

 finement that was " very fond of beechnuts 

 and thrived when fed exclusively on them for 

 more than a week." Judging from these find- 

 ings, dry vegetable food seems to be preferred 

 to succulent varieties. 



The writer's shrews did not exhibit the 

 ravenous appetite attributed to the species by 

 some observers. They did not pursue their prey 

 persistently, and having captured it, seemed 

 satisfied, for the time being, with a small 

 amount of food. ShuU gives two thirds of a 

 meadow vole or one house mouse as the aver- 

 age daily diet. This is a higher average than 

 that made by the shrews under observation, as 

 two thirds of a house mouse, or its equivalent, 

 was amply sufficient. They drank small quan- 

 tities of water frequently. However, within 

 the twelve hours immediately following an 

 eleven-hour fast, one ate 16 grams of animal 

 food (more than the equivalent of its own 

 weight — 15 grams), which fact demonstrates 

 their latent capabilities in that direction. 

 Quoting Seton again, he says: 



Numerous experiments and observations on cap- 

 tive animals prove that the Blarina, like its smaller 

 kin, has an enormous appetite which must be satis- 

 fied, or in a very few hours the creature succumbs. 



The writer found an uninjured shrew of this 

 species, dead in a cage trap seventeen hours 

 after setting it, showing that death by starva- 



