66 
MAMMALIA. 
Family SORICID^E. 
BLARINA BREVICAUDA (Say) Baird. 
Short-tailed Shrew. 
The Short-tailed Shrew is, I presume, the most abundant of the 
insectivorous mammals that occur in the Adirondack Mountains, and 
is found alike in the dense coniferous forests of the interior, and the 
cleared and settled districts of the surrounding region. 
It seeks its food both by day and by night ; and, although the 
greater part ot its life is doubtless spent underground, or at least under 
logs and leaves, and amongst the roots of trees and stumps, it 
occasionally makes excursions upon the surface, and I have met and 
secured many specimens in broad daylight. 
It subsists upon beechnuts, insects, earth-worms, slugs, sow-bugs, 
and mice, and can in no way be considered as other than a friend to 
the farmer. Its burrows are so small that their presence near the 
roots of plants could hardly prove injurious. 
In the selection of its haunts it seems to show a preference for the 
neighborhood of half-decayed logs, under and within which much of 
its food is procured. It is also pretty sure to find and undermine old 
planks and boards that have been left on the ground, and I have 
captured it under a stone walk. While it is common on the dry 
ground immediately bordering swamps and streams, I have never 
known it either to enter the water, or to cross over wet places. It 
does not appear to be as abundant in those portions of the forest 
that are covered exclusively with coniferous evergreens, as in the 
vicinity of hard-wood ridges and groves. This is probably due, partly 
to the nature of the food supply, and partly to its fondness for travel- 
ling under the layer of dead and decomposing leaves that covers the 
ground in our deciduous forests. 
The ricrors of our northern winters seem to have no effect in 
diminishing its activity, for it scampers about on the snow during the 
severest weather, and I have known it to be out when the thermome- 
