226 
Vermin of the Farm. 
damage it does to osier-beds when other food fails, and on this 
account, looking to the value of osiers, proprietors cannot be 
blamed for taking the most effective measures to keep these 
little animals in check. 
To many people, mice and shrews appear very much alike, 
and are supposed to be nearly related. The latter are often 
called shrew-mice, and are blamed for a good deal of mischief 
they never do, and for living on food they never touch. 
■j As a matter of fact, the shrews are not only not members of 
the same “ family,” but they do not belong even to the same 
“ order.” The mice and voles belong to the order Eodentia, or 
gnawing animals ; the shrews to the Insectivora. The former 
are graminivorous and herbivorous ; the latter live upon worms, 
flies, spiders, moths, beetles, and the larvse of the two last named, 
and the dentition of each is modified in accordance with its habits 
and mode of life. Thus if we examine the skull of a vole, it will 
be seen that there are no canine teeth ; only long chisel-like 
incisors for cutting and peeling, and molars for grinding and 
reducing the food to pulp. Shrews, however, resemble in their 
dentition the strictly insectivorous bats, the molars or grinding 
teeth being similarly furnished with several sharp cusps or points, 
which are characteristic of insect-eating mammals, and all the 
teeth have roots or fangs. There are other peculiarities of struc- 
ture, to which, however, at present, there is no need to refer. 
From its shy and retired habits, the common shrew (Sorex 
araneus) (Fig. 4), is not often to be observed in a Ihflng state, but 
may be frequently seen lying dead on the pathway. The cause 
of the mortality among these little animals, though often noticed, 
has never been satisfactorily accounted for. It has been said 
that their odour is repulsive to their enemies, who will kill but 
will not eat them. But this is not invariably the case, for we 
have found numerous skulls of shrews in the rejected “ pellets ” 
or “ castings ” of the barn owl, and once took two of these little 
creatures from the stomach of a stone curlew {(Edicnemus). 
In Shropshire and Staffordshire it is called “ nursrow,” a 
corruption of “ nose-shrew,” A.-S. nase screaiva, from its pro- 
minent feature. In AViltshire it is known as “ over-runner,” 
and elsewhere “ ranny-mouse,” names no doubt bestowed by 
believers in the popular fallacy that a shrew is “ very mis- 
chievous to cattle, which going over a beast’s back will make 
it lame in the chine.” ’ Readers of White’s “ Selbome ” will 
Phillips, JVefv Ifi/rlrl of Words, 1658. 
