1852 Jenyns 1 Natural History. 



spot, to which it seemed directed by the scent, and drew out a very large worm from 

 just beneath the surface of the ground. This it immediately began to devour, taking 

 it into the mouth by one extremity, and gradually eating its way to the other ; an ope- 

 ration which lasted some time, and was attended by an incessant action of the teeth, 

 which grated upon one another with a peculiar noise. After the worm was all gone, 

 as I thought, I was surprised to see the whole put out of the mouth again ; and, from 

 the appearance of the cast, I was led to believe that it had been only subjected to the 

 action of the teeth, for the purpose of being bruised, and squeezing out the soft inter- 

 nal parts of the body, which alone were eaten in the first instance : the skin itself, 

 however, was shortly retaken into the mouth, and the whole clean devoured. 



" From the above observation, it is probable that worms form no inconsiderable part 

 of the food of the hedge-hog, and that they are enabled to detect them by the smell, 

 and to extract them from the ground with their snout, after the same manner that the 

 hog uses his in searching for buried food. In the above instance no attempt was made 

 to kill the worm before eating it ; but that part of the poor creature which was still out 

 of the mouth of the hedge-hog kept up a perpetual writhing as the nibbling of its 

 other extremity proceeded.'' — p. 61. 



Voracity of the Common Shrew* — " The extreme voracity of the mole is well 

 known.f The shrew, which belongs to the same natural group as the mole (the insec- 

 tivorous Carnivora), would seem to resemble it in this peculiarity, according to a state- 

 ment furnished to me by my esteemed friend Mr. Selby, of Twizell. He observes in 

 a letter received February, 1843 : ' What greedy gluttonous animals the shrews ap- 

 pear to be! One was caught alive upon the snow here the other day, and brought 

 into the house, and placed in a glass box : a piece of raw mutton was given 

 to it, which it attacked with the greatest voracity the moment it smelt it ; and it con- 

 tinued eating almost without intermission till it had devoured the whole of it. The 

 piece, I should think, could not have weighed less than half or three quarters of an 

 ounce. When the shrew first seized it, it shook it as a dog does a rat, and then be- 

 gan to gnaw it with its sharp-pointed grinders on one side of the mouth. It lived for 

 a couple of days, almost continually eating ; and previous to its death, which was very 

 sudden, seemed in perfect health.'" — p. 62. 



Habits of the Stoat. — " The circumstance of the foumart's occasionally preying 

 upon eels is well known to the readers of Bewick's ' Quadrupeds,' where there is an in- 

 stance given of this fact.! Mr. Selby has observed the same predilection for this kind 

 of food in the case of its congener the stoat. The particulars which he has sent me, 

 connected with this discovery, are as follows. During the course of a walk, in com- 



* Sorex tetragonurus, Herm. 



f Mr. Bell, in his ' British Quadrupeds,' quoting from Geoffroy St. Hilaire, says, 

 " The mole does not exhibit the appetite of hunger as we find it in other animals ; it 

 amounts in it to a degree of frenzy. The animal, when under its influence, is violently 

 agitated ; it throws itself on its prey as if maddened with rage ; its gluttony disorders 

 all its faculties, and nothing seems to stand in the way of its intense voracity." 



Mr. Jesse also observes, that, " as soon as the mole is caught and placed in a box, 

 it will begin to feed with the utmost unconcern." 'Gleanings in Natural History,' 

 (3rd Ser.) p. 167. 



I Eighth edition, page 253. 



