QUADRUPEDS. 61 
ash, which for ages had been looked upon with no small 
veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash 
whose twigs and branches, when 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 whenever it creeps 
over a beast, be it a horse, or cow, or sheep, the suffering 
animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened 
with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this acci- 
dent, to which they were continually liable, our provident 
forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when 
once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A 
shrew-ash was made thus : into the body of the tree a 
deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted 
Shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in." The 
cruelty of this, and many other practices of our ancestors, 
ought to make us thankful that we live in more enlightened 
days. 
The female Shrew makes her nest in a bank, or if on 
the ground, she covers it at the top, always entering on 
the side ; and she has generally from five to seven young 
ones at a time. 
