III. 



THE LEAST OP THE MAMMALS. 



LIFTING- up a large, flat stone at the edge of a piece of woods, in 

 search of snails, not long ago, I caught a glimpse of a small dun- 

 colored animal, not much larger than my thumb, which darted away in 

 precipitate alarm, uttering a squeaking cry. The ground under the stone 

 showed a net-work of little troughs or channels, meeting in a larger ave- 

 nue at the centre. Down one of these, which at the distance of a few 

 inches disappeared in a tunnel under the matted leaves and herbage, the 

 tiny quadruped scampered to some safe retreat beneath the roots of a 

 beech. I made a catch at him, and, though I missed him, saw that he 

 was a shrew — a scion of the ancient lineage of Soricidse. 



These smallest of all the great company of mammals conceal them- 

 selves from the student with true coquetry, baffling nearly all his efforts 

 to get a glimpse of them. Nevertheless they are widespread, numerous, 

 and sometimes familiar, occasionally making their home in the wall of a 

 house-cellar or about the barn. 



In color and form the shrew suggests a house-mouse, but his nose and 

 teeth declare him of the entirely different race of Insectivora — a com- 

 panion to " the moles and the bats." No part of the world (save, possibly, 

 South America) seems to lack representatives of the shrew family, but its 

 stronghold is in northern regions. America owns a dozen or so doubt- 

 fully defined species, grouped by Coues into three genera — Neosorex, So- 

 rex, and Blarina. In the first the feet are fimbriate, and the tail equals 

 or exceeds the head and body in length ; the second genus has ordinary 

 feet, and a tail shorter than the head and body ; the third lacks visible 

 ears, and has a very short tail. To Blarina belong the greater number 

 of American shrews, and the most diminutive — some full-grown speci- 

 mens, tail and all, measuring less than two and a half inches in length. 

 The bulk of body in the largest member of the family would not greatly 

 excel this pygmy, though the long tails of JYedsorex unfairly increase 

 comparisons in respect to length. 



