Lect. VL] RED TEETH OF THE SHREW. 157 



The hungry, impatient Cat, who mistakes a Shrew 

 for a Mouse, and then leaves her musky prey untasted, 

 would starve upon that which fattens the Mole, the 

 Shrew, and the Bat. The hist of these kinds hawks for 

 his small prey ; but the Shrew, with his delicate 

 proboscis, his sharp eyes, and Iiis quick ears, knows where 

 small beetles most do conoTCo-ate. These he crunches 



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and munches with exquisite teeth, the cusps or j^oints 

 of which are of a deep ferruginous red colour ; more 

 beautiful, strange to say, because they are thus stained. 



The Power that made the beetle strong in his polished 

 and enamelled armour, made also the teeth of the Shrew 

 most fit instruments for crushino; that armour in which 

 the beetle trusts. It is pleasanter to look ujDon this vacil- 

 lation, so to s]3eak, of beneficent purj^ose, from the stand- 

 point of a Darwin, than from the standpoint of a Paley ; 

 there is much that is painfully mysterious in the whole 

 matter, and we only see it in a partial view. Anyhow, 

 the human Vertebrate, who suffers from many kinds of 

 huno'er, is not better fitted for his mode of life than the 

 Shrew for his ; the latter is a perfect little creature, and 

 well worthy the attention of the biologist. 



We have three native forms of this widely-distributed 

 family of the Insectivora, a family which has representa- 

 tives in many parts of the old world, and in the nortliern 

 part of the new. 



The commonest kind [Sorex vulgaris) is intermediate in 

 size between the other two ; the largest is the Water Shrew 



