Natural History of the Hudson's Bay Territories. 25 



visible." In my specimen it is not thickly clothed with hairs ; 

 it is rather sparingly clothed with hairs, and the scales are very 

 apparent under them. He also says that " its " (the tail's) 

 " upper surface is of a hair-brown colour, considerably darker 

 than any other part of the animal, and contrasts strongly with 

 the inferior surface, which is white." The upper surface of 

 the tail in my individual is not nearly so dark as the back of 

 the body ; still, however, as it agrees in all other respects with 

 Mus leucopus, I have no doubt that it is that species, and that 

 these differences are only accidental variations in my specimen. 



Shrew-Mole 1 (Scalops Canadensis, Cuv.) — I have had no 

 opportunity of comparing this animal with any named speci- 

 mens, and my determination is made entirely from the descrip- 

 tion in Sir J. Richardson's " Fauna Bor. Amer." My specimen 

 agrees, for the most part, with the description in that work ; 

 but there are one or two points on which I am not quite 

 satisfied. In particular, the whole of the fore foot is said to 

 have a close resemblance to that of the common mole. Now, 

 although this has a general resemblance, it cannot be said to 

 bear a close resemblance. It wants the sabre-shaped bone of 

 the mole, and the nails are greatly smaller. The description 

 of the nails of the shrew-mole is, that they are large, white, 

 and have a semi-lanceolate form, with narrow, but rather ob- 

 tuse points. These in my specimen can scarcely (according 

 to my ideas) be said to be large ; but large is a word of very 

 doubtful interpretation ; what is large to one person may be 

 very small to another ; so that, on this item, I must mark my 

 species with a query. 



There is one point in the history of the shrew-mole which 

 I should like to see either confirmed or expunged from our 

 books — viz., that although a burrowing animal, it has the sin- 

 gular habit of coming daily to the surface exactly at noon. 



Soreoc parvus, Say. — This shrew may be readily distin- 

 guished from other American shrews by its tail being rounded 

 instead of being more or less angular. One might be disposed 

 to think that this is a character of little value, depending 

 merely on the greater or less plumpness of the individual ; but 



VOL. II. D 



