Fes., 1912. MAMMALS OF ILLINOIS AND WISCONSIN— Cory. 413 
the eye rests upon a fallen leaf that seems to move. Presently another 
stirs and perhaps a third leaf turns completely over. Then something 
evanescent, like the shadow of an embryonic mouse, appears and 
vanishes before the retina can catch its perfect image. Anon, the 
restless phantom flits across the open space, leaving no trace behind. 
But a charge of fine shot, dropped with quick aim upon the next leaf 
that moves will usually solve the mystery. The author of the per- 
plexing commotion is found to be a curious, sharp-nosed creature no 
bigger than one’s little finger, and weighing hardly more than a dram. 
Its ceaseless activity, and the rapidity with which it darts from place 
to place, is truly astonishing, and rarely permits the observer a correct 
impression of its form.’’* 
Herrick gives an interesting description of the action of a pair of 
these Shrews which he observed at night in Pine Co., Minnesota. He 
says: ‘‘To a person alone in the woods for the first time after a long 
interval every sound is novel and more or less charged with mystery. 
The wind stirred the tree tops and impinging boughs clattered and the 
trunks groaned under the tortion, each tree with its own doleful note. 
The few remaining pines added their sighing to the many melancholy 
sounds belonging to the autumn forest at night. But amid all the 
sounds nothing could be identified as coming from anything living, 
even the distant howling of wolves was silenced, and I began to feel 
that the attempt to gain personal knowledge of the ways of woodsy 
mammals by night study would prove futile, and composed myself to 
sleep. The half-somnolent revery which forms the prelude to slumber, 
was broken by faint melodious sounds on an excessively high key — so 
high that it seemed that I might be simply hearing the lower notes 
of an elfin symphony, the upper registers in which were beyond the 
powers of human ears to distinguish. The sounds were distinctly 
musical and reminded me of the contented twitter of birds finding 
resting places among the boughs at night. Without moving I turned 
my eyes upon the fire-lit circle, about which the darkness formed an 
apparently impenetrable wall. Only the most careful scrutiny enabled 
me to discover the tiny musicians. Within a few feet of my head, upon 
a decayed log, raced a pair of shrews (S. cooperi), so minute as to escape 
my observation at first. Up and down with the most sprightly imag- 
inable motions they ran, twittering incessantly. Hither and thither 
they scampered over my clothing and almost into my pockets, like 
veritable lilliputians, seizing now a crumb of cheese, with which my 
traps were baited, and now a bit of fish fallen from my improvised 
Supper table” (7. c., p. 41). 
*Mamm, Adirondack Reg., 1886, p. I74. 
