SHREWISH CHARACTERISTICS 
their armpits a musky odor which no doubt is protective, since 
most hawks, cats, foxes, etc., do not eat them unless excessively 
hungry; but owls and weasels “‘appear to be well pleased with 
such flavors, and catch and devour them in large numbers.” 
This odor reaches its maximum in the great musk shrews of 
the warmer parts of the Old World, one of which is the mis- 
named ‘“‘musk rat” of India, familiar to every villager, for it 
enters houses at night and ransacks them for insect vermin. 
Many long-nosed shrews are aquatic in their habits, dwelling 
in bank burrows and swimming, diving, and even walking with 
ease on the bottom of streams where they find their food. All 
have some modification or other of feet and tail to adapt them 
to these methods of work. 
One of the most extraordinary things in natural history is 
the fact that ancient superstitions cling to these little creatures 
in Europe, and are now and then heard of even in America.* 
Gilbert White” gives us a hint of them in his well-known 
account of the shrew ash at Selborne. Another old writer, 
WESTERN SHREWMOLE. 
the Reverend Edward Topsell, “‘clearke of the king his most 
excellent maiesties closet,’ at the opening of the seventeenth 
century, in his rare ‘‘ Historie of Four-footed Beastes,” printed 
in London in 1607, says of the shrew that “it is a ravening 
beaste, feigning itself gentle and tame, but, being touched, it 
biteth deeply and poysoneth deadly. It beareth a cruel minde, 
desiring to hurt anything, neither is there any creature that it 
loveth, or it loveth him, because it is feared of all.” 
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