144 
VERTEBRATA. 
WATER-SHREWS. 
not cat these animals, on account of their musky smell, kestrels and owls are known to prey upon 
them. 
Shrews are very pugnacious : if two he confined in a box together, but a very short time elapses 
before the weaker of the two is killed and partly devoured. Their nest, which is formed of soft 
grasses and other plants, is generally found in a hole more or less shallow, in the ground, or a dry 
bank, and is entered at the side, being, so to speak, roofed over. Here the female produces in 
the spring from five to seven little shrews. 
Among the ancients, the shrew-mouse had a very bad reputation. Thus Aristotle declares that 
its bite is dangerous to horses and other beasts of burden ; and that it is more dangerous if the 
animal be with young. The bite, he says, causes boils, and these burst, if the shrew-mouse be 
pregnant wlien she inflicts the M'onnd ; but if she be not, they do not burst. Pliny states that 
the bite of tbe Italian shrew-mouse is venomous. Agricola tells us that its bite in warm regions 
is generally pestiferous, but that in cold climates it is not, — consoling those who may suffer by it 
that the animal itself, torn asunder or dissected and placed upon the wound, is a remedy for its 
own venom. It is difficult to account for such widely extended prejudices. It appears that even 
to our English ancestors this graceful and harmless little animal was also an object of fear and 
superstition. 
The S. crassicaudus is of a larger size than the preceding, and found in Egypt. It seems to 
have been one of the sacred animals of Ancient Egypt, for it is found among tlie preserved mum- 
mies in great mmiber^. As these are at least tbree thousand years old, and the skeletons are pre- 
cisely similar to those of the species now existing, and as this fact coincides with others, natural- 
ists draw the inference that the form and structure of most animals arc permanent, or at least 
subject to small modifications. There were probably severaLother species of sorex thus religiously 
preserved by the Egyptians. 
The S. fiavescens, of the Cape of Good Hope, is white, tinged with fawn ; the ^. herpestes, S, 
cyaneus, S. capenso'ides, and S. gracilis, are of the same locality ; the S. Etruscus is found in Italy 
and France, and is a very diminutive species, not over an inch and a half long. A similar species 
is found in Algeria. The S. Perrottetii, very small, is found in the lofty plateaux of India, near 
Pondicherry. A similar one, S. Madagascariensis, is found in Madagascar, The S. myosurus^ 
or Rat-tailed Shrew of India, is differently named by different authors ; it is noted for' its in- 
tense musky odor. In India there are other species of shrew, of which httle is known. One 
is called S. giganteus by Geoffroy, and F. Cuvier speaks of one under the name of S. Montjouron. 
