Southeastern Shrew 
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Habitat 
Habitats in which we found Sorex longirostris confirmed earlier 
observations; the species occurs in a wide range of cover types (French 
1980a, 1980b; Wolfe and Esher 1981; Pagels et al. 1982). Frequency of 
captures of S. longirostris in various habitats in each of the physiographic 
provinces of Virginia are given in Table 1. In the lowlands this shrew 
was caught with similar frequency in all habitats. In the mountains, 
however, it was caught more often in fields and field-forest edges than 
in forest (14 versus 1). 
Sorex longirostris was caught often in the Piedmont (at 65% of the 
pitfall localities), Blue Ridge (40%), and Coastal Plain (37%), but 
infrequently in the Ridge and Valley Province — at only 11% of the 
localities. The rarity and limited distribution of S. longirostris in 
western Virginia are emphasized by the very few captures there in spite 
of extensive pitfall sampling (Table 1 and Fig. 2). Regardless of cover 
type, the actual number of S. longirostris captured in pitfalls in the 
Ridge and Valley Province, 7 vs. 66 in the other provinces, was 
significantly less than the expected value adjusted for sampling effort 
(X 2 = 50.3, P< 0.01). 
DISTRIBUTION IN WESTERN VIRGINIA 
Our records extend the known range of S. longirostris in western 
Virginia. Specimens from Scott and Lee counties bring the range of the 
species to the edge of the Appalachian Plateau Province, where it 
already is known to occur in Tennessee (French 1980b), Kentucky 
(Caldwell and Bryan 1983), and West Virginia (French 1976). From the 
localities in southwestern Virginia, the range of S. longirostris is 
continuous southward along the Powell, Clinch, and Holston rivers into 
the Tennessee Valley. 
The specimens from Blacksburg confirm the occurrence of S. 
longirostris there. This is close to the site where Handley collected a 
specimen, subsequently lost, that he identified and published as Sorex 
longirostris (Handley and Patton 1947). The external measurements of 
this specimen, a male, total length 80 mm, tail vertebrae 32 mm, hind 
foot 1 1 mm, ear 9 mm, and weight 3.0 g, are close to the mean for S. 
longirostris. 
We discovered that a specimen (USNM 521113) that had been 
found floating dead in a swimming pool in Vesuvius, Rockbridge 
County, in 1956 is a young S. longirostris , not Microsorex hoyi 
winnemana Preble as we previously reported (Handley et al. 1980). This 
establishes the occurrence of S. longirostris in the mid-Shenandoah 
Valley. Later, we caught another specimen nearby, at Lexington. 
