358 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



throughout the heavily forested boreal area in the northern part of the 

 state. South of this region it occurs in isolated colonies wherever local 

 conditions give it a sufficiently boreal environment. 



Principal records. Merriam : " This species . . . is not rare in the 

 Adirondacks though I do not think it is as plentiful here as Sorex 

 cooperi [personatus], which it much resembles in habits" ('84(3, p. 77). 

 Mearns: "Three specimens were taken [in the Catskills]. One was 

 trapped under a stone wall on the right [north] bank of Schoharie creek, 

 one in a hollow stump on the south slope of East Jewett mountain at 

 about 2000 feet altitude, and the third under a log a little farther up the 

 mountain" ('98b, p. 354). 



I have found the smoky shrew at Peterboro and Chittenango fallsf 

 Madison co. and at Elizabethtown, Essex co. ('95, p. 50-52). At 

 the type locality it is local and not common: Most of the specimens 

 including the type were trapped in a gorge on the Oneida creek about 

 three miles southwest of the village of Peterboro. At Elizabethtown it 

 is common and very generally distributed in the forests. 



Remarks. This species will probably be found in many localities in 

 New York. Rhoads has recoided it from the following counties in 

 Pennsylvania: Pike, Monroe, Sullivan, Clinton, Columbia and Somerset 

 ('97b, p. 223). 



Sorex macrurus Batchelder Big-tailed shrew 

 1896 Sorex macrurus Batchelder, Biolog. soc. Washington. Proc. 



8 Dec. 1896. 10 : 2>Z- 

 1898 So? ex macrurus Mearns, U. S. Nat. mus. Proc. 21 : 355. 



Type locality. Beedes, Essex co. New York. 



Faunal position. The big-tailed shrew is so slightly known that I am 

 unable to assign it a definite faunal position. In all probability it is 

 confined to the colder parts of the boreal zone. 



Habitat. (See principal records). 



Distribution in New York. The only localities at which this animal 

 has been taken are Beedes, the summit of Mt Marcy and the Catskills. 



In all only 10 specimens have yet been collected. 



Principal records. Batchelder: "On September 9, 1895 at Beedes, 

 Essex co. New York I obtained a shrew unlike any species known to me. 

 It was caught . . . among some large angular rocks at the head of a 

 wooded talus of loose rock. Just above, shading the spot and keeping it 

 moist and cool, rise the low cliffs from whose fragments the talus has 

 been formed. 



