142 SORICID^— NEOMYS 



The wide range of the Water Shrew's appetite is nowhere 

 so well shown as when traps are set for it, for, although the 

 most successful bait is probably raw meat in one form or 

 another, and especially pieces of liver, it will eat any ordinary 

 mouse-attracting substance such as cheese.^ In addition, it 

 does not despise carrion nor the bodies of other small mammals. 

 Several instances of this kind are related in Bell's second 

 edition. In one case a shrew was discovered in the interior of 

 the carcase — half-dried and decomposed — of a barn-door fowl. 

 Another shrew was found perched on the body of a full-grown 

 trapped rat,^ the tough skin of which it was attempting to 

 pierce. Despite its projecting snout and comparatively weak 

 teeth, it had succeeded in making a small hole through the 

 rodent's skin ; and it was most energetically employed on the 

 enlargement of this by means both of teeth and claws. So 

 ferocious were its actions that it might very properly be described 

 as fighting the rat, and so intent was it upon its work that it 

 allowed itself to be captured without resistance. Continental 

 naturalists' complete the dietary by the addition of young 

 birds and animals, and there is not the slightest doubt that 

 these may be occasionally attacked by it. 



Like the Common Shrew, the present species is, at least in 

 summer, the reverse of silent, and its cry, a shrill, chattering 

 shriek, sometimes challenges attention. Dovaston was, how- 

 ever, perhaps a little too picturesque when he expressed it as a 

 "very short, shrill, feeble sibilation, not unlike that of the 

 grasshopper-lark, . . . but nothing near so loud or long- 

 continued." It is probably best described by the epithet 

 "cricket-like," and is difficult to distinguish from the voice of 

 other shrews. In winter, according to Mr Robert Drane,* 

 the cry is rarely heard. 



The residence of this animal is usually a burrow, some- 

 times an elaborate system of galleries with one or more 

 of the entrances opening under water. It thus possesses a 

 retreat whether pursued from the land or from the water, but 

 to what extent it digs it for itself is uncertain.^ Probably, like 



I Evans ; Forrest, etc. 2 gge also R. F. Tomes, Worcestershire, 175. 



^ E.g., Blasius ; and de Kerville. 



* MS. per T. W. Proger. » Collett states that it does dig. 



