﻿36 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[Xo. 10. 



collectiou and the private collections of Dr. G. Hart Merriam, Mr. Out- 

 ram BangSj and Mr. S. IST. Ehoads. I liave also had at my disposal, in 

 addition to the specimens in the British Museum already referred to, 

 the Shrews belonging to the American Museum of i^ataral History, the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, and certain specimens deter- 

 mined by Baird in the United States National Museum. 



The three most important studies of the Shrews of eastern North 

 America are those of Bacliman, 1837;^ Baird, 1857,^ and Dobson, 1890.'^ 



The following table shows the names used by these authors for the 

 seven species admitted in the present paper. 



Sorex hovi- 



palustris .. 

 albibarbis . 

 richardsoni 

 fume us 



loiigirostria 

 personatus. 



Bachman, 1837. 



S. richardsoni. 



S. longirostrif 



S. forsteri 



S. fimbripes. . 

 S. cooperi 



Baird, 1857. 



S.hoyi 



S. thonipsoni 



S. pachyurus. . 



S. forstei'i 



S. richardsoni. 

 S. personal 

 S. cooperi . . . 

 S. platyrhini 

 S. haydeni . . 



us' 



Dobson, 1890. 



S. hoyi. 



S. palustris. 



S. vulgaris (= S. araneus) . 

 S. platyrhinus. 



S. I'ichardsoni. 

 S. personatus. 

 S. havdeni. 



The subject is so complicated that it is necessary to consider in detail 

 the history of each species. 



Sorex hoyi. — Sorex hoyi was first described in 1857 by Baird, and since 

 then has been almost unknown. At present there are i)erhaps two 

 dozen specimens in collections. Sorex thompsoni, from Burlington, Yt., 

 described in the same paper with S. hoyi, is probably indistinguishable 

 from the latter. 



In 1877 Dr. Coues published in his Precursory Notes on American 

 Insectivorous Mammals'' a diagnosis by Baird of the subgenus Micro- 

 sorex based on Sorex hoyi. In this paper, as well as in the original 

 description of the species, Baird overlooked the minute fourth incisor 

 and stated that Sorex hoyi liad only 30 teeth. This error was not 

 detected until 1890, when Dobson figured the teeth correctly. 



Sorex palustris. — The first notice of an American Marsh Shrew was 

 published in 1828, when Richardson described Sorex palustris,^ an 

 animal which he had found frequenting the borders of lakes in the 

 region between Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains. 



' Jour. Acad. Nafc. Sci. Phila., VII, Part II. 

 2]y[amm. N. Am. 



3 Moil. Insectivora, Part III, fasc. 1. 



^Bull. U. S. Geol. aud Geog. Surv., Ill, No. 3, 1877. 



^Zool. Jour., Ill, p. 517. 



