THE WATER SHREW 147 



Mr Millais had another on the T5th of the same month, and 

 Mr W. Eagle Clarke on the same date obtained one in the 

 nursing condition from Peeblesshire, while Blasius states that 

 he twice saw the young on foot in late summer. Mr Adams 

 caught a nursing female on 2nd October 1909.^ 



The playfulness of young water shrews has often come 

 under the notice of naturalists, and has been most graphically 

 described by Mr Hodgson,^ who watched a family of seven, 

 being five young and two parents. " At the termination of a 

 drain, where it emptied into an open water-course, was the 

 entrance to their burrow. The field was in grass at the time 

 and depastured with cattle. In a semicircle round their hole 

 were a number of grass-covered runs, artistically arranged with 

 the view apparently of forming a first-class recreation ground. 

 A number of paths, wide enough only to accommodate a single 

 shrew, radiated from the burrow as a centre, each extending 

 about 7 or 8 feet in length. These were crossed by parallel 

 semicircular tracks about a foot apart, the entire ground plan 

 giving much the idea of a geometric spider's web cut in half. 

 Along these tracks, lengthwise and crosswise indiscriminately, 

 the youngsters chased each other with almost lightning speed. 

 Should any two of their number chance to ' foreset ' each other, 

 there was a squabble, and much shrill recrimination resulted. 

 When tired with racing long, they would suddenly scuttle into 

 the burrow, only to return in a few minutes and renew their 

 frantic exertions." 



It is not known when the little family disperses or how long 

 the young remain with their parents. It seems clear that the 

 parents do not separate before or after the birth of their 

 offspring, and it is very probable that the family party, as in 

 the case of some other small mammals, may remain together for 

 some little time, perhaps even for months. Probably, also, the 

 breeding season brings these shrews together in companies, 

 which would account for the party of nine or ten encountered 

 by the late Canon H. B. Tristram^ on 6th May, as well as for 

 a concourse of twenty or thirty observed in Yorkshire by 

 Mr W. B. Arundel on the loth of the same month.* 



' In lit. 2 Xrans. Cumberland and Westmorland Assoc, xi., 38-39, 1886. 



' Zoologist, 1853, 3905. * Ibid., 1908, 189. 



