BRITISH MAMMALS 
last mentioned localities where it is absent, its place is taken by the 
Lesser Shrew. 
Though the Common Shrew is often about during the winter months, 
it is in spring, summer, and autumn that it is most frequently seen as it 
dodges out and in among the grass and dead leaves on hedgerow banks 
or in gardens and meadows. 
During the breeding season in spring, the males often engage in battle. 
A combat of this kind is described by Mr. Millais, who observed two 
which were contending so fiercely that they fell headlong down a bank 
while locked in a deadly embrace. The food consists chiefly of slugs, 
worms, and the larvae of insects, of which it consumes large quantities. 
What has long been a puzzle to naturalists is the cause of the strange 
mortality among Shrews, occurring chiefly in the autumn, when numbers 
are found lying dead by wayside paths. Various reasons have been 
suggested as the cause, but the mystery is still unsolved. 
In olden days this species was for long the victim of superstition 
and prejudice, various evils and misfortunes having been attributed to it, 
such as the lameness of cattle as a result of the passing of a Shrew 
over their feet or legs. 
The well known description by Gilbert White of how these evils 
were believed to be curable by means of a Shrew-Ash may be quoted 
here. " Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when 
gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains 
which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part 
affected : for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and 
deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, 
cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish and 
threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, 
to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always 
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