34: SENSITIVENESS OF THE SHREW. 



pioneers in search of their food, such dark places serving them as a sort 

 of market. When they leave the shelter of logs and bowlders, they very 

 rarely step out into daylight — however often they may go abroad upon 

 the surface during their nocturnal rambles — but move under cover of the 

 leaves and bending herbage, pressing them aside, or, if the earth be loose, 

 descending and tunnelling through it for long distances, until innumer- 

 able slender galleries are formed. These galleries open to the surface at 

 frequent intervals, and in certain favored spots the loam and matted pas- 

 sage will be found to be permeated by a perfect labyrinth of them. They 

 are not dug, but the mould is pushed aside, the pointed snout and nim- 

 ble toes of the miner making an entrance into which the powerful little 

 shoulders push along with surprising speed. 



Through this kind of life the eyes of the shrews have become reduced 

 to mere black dots, less than those of the bat, hidden in the ; soft, thick, 

 water-proof fur, and they are of small or no use as organs of vision ; the 

 external ear, too, has been worn and flattened in the course of generations 

 of rubbing until it has almost disappeared, what there is left of the au- 

 ricle being directed backward, since danger from the rear is most to be 

 apprehended in the tunnels, and the delicate sense of touch in the unu- 

 sually long whiskers and facile snout guards well in front. The superior 

 sensitiveness to touch and sound of animals living underground is well 

 known, and is a natural consequence of loss of the opportunity (finally 

 resulting in loss of power) of sight; the mole is an extreme example of 

 this, and it is the shrew's strongest safeguard. Hearing and feeling the 

 jar of danger, it hides and keeps silent. One careful naturalist* relates 

 how a shrew that he held in his hand would start with a quick spasm of 

 fear at every discharge of some guns over a mile away, although the 

 sound was so muffled as scarcely to be audible to the human ear. A slight 

 agitation of the air in its vicinity is enough to alarm it. 



Probably this animal trusts chiefly to touch in choosing and captur- 

 ing its food. This consists of slugs, earthworms, and all sorts of insects, 

 with their larvae; young mice, frogs, snails; eggs, and fledglings of 

 ground-building birds; grain and seeds. Carrion, also, is an important 

 resource to it (traps may be baited with beef) ; and Godman says that 

 he has found shrews rooting in the barn-yard ordure like little pigs. It is 

 extremely expert in the water, darting over the surface and diving to the 

 bottom with the greatest agility; therefore, many small aquatic animals 

 fall victims to the lowland species, especially of Neosorex. 



* Henry Gillinan, American Naturalist, vol. x. , p. 430. 



