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Common Shrew
Also called: Long-tailed Shrew, Shrew Mouse.
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Length.—3.75 inches.
Description.—Small and slender, with a long-pointed snout supporting long "whiskers." Tail nearly as long as the head and body. Colour dark-brown above, hairs slaty at their base, brighter on the rump, and shading gradually to gray on the underside.
Range.—Canada to Indiana and southern New Jersey, and in the Alleghanies to North Carolina. A somewhat similar shrew is found in the low ground in North Carolina and several others in the North. (See below).
Range.—Labrador and Hudson Bay region.
Range.—Colder and mountainous regions, New England, New York and in the Alleghanies.
Range.—Bertie Co. and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Range.—Dismal Swamp, Virginia.
Range.—Higher parts of the Adirondacks and Catskills.
Range.—Minnesota to Nova Scotia and the Adirondacks.
The common shrew or shrew mouse is a smaller and much more attractive little animal than the short-tailed shrew. The smaller varieties are easily the smallest of our quadrupeds; a common mouse looks overgrown and clumsy beside one of them.
Shrew mice are active throughout the winter, skipping about over the surface of the snow from tree to tree, poking their delicate, proboscis-like noses into crevices of the bark, and investigating the dark interiors of hollow trees at the bottoms of which they have to root about in the crumbling wood and vegetable mould for their accustomed prey.
Underneath wood piles and logs are favourite haunts of these funny little beasts, and I believe that it is in such places as these that they bring up their families. Both in winter and summer they appear to prefer the neighbourhood of such little streams as neither freeze nor become stagnant at either season.
Like all of the tribe of insect eaters this little shrew finds the summer drought the most disastrous season of the year; at such times many of them perish, evidently from thirst.
I have never had an opportunity of observing their method of hunting in warm weather. All the living specimens that I have found, except in winter, were crouching beneath old boards or wood piles, but knowing their choice of food and the places they inhabit and their quaint way of getting about, it is easy to imagine them stalking crickets and beetles in the shade of the humbler growth of the forest. No doubt they get lots of fun and breathless excitement and suspense before certain of the larger and more active insects are subdued. With the exception of some of the weasels they are perhaps the most hot blooded, energetic, excitable little beasts alive.
Dr. Merriam, speaking of their voracious habits, states that he once confined three of these restless little beasts under an ordinary tumbler. "Almost immediately they commenced fighting, and in a few minutes one was slaughtered and eaten by the other two. Before night one of them killed and ate its only surviving companion, and its abdomen was much distended by the meal. Hence in less than eight hours one of these tiny wild beasts had attacked, overcome, and ravenously consumed two of its own species, each as large and heavy as itself." Of the rapid progress of the shrew when at large, he says, "if one is sitting quietly in the woods it sometimes happens that a slight rustling reaches the ear. There is no wind but the eye rests upon a fallen leaf that seems to move. Presently another stirs and perhaps a third turns completely over. Then something evanescent, like the shadow of an embryonic mouse, appears and vanishes before the retina can catch its perfect image.... Its ceaseless activity, and the rapidity with which it darts from place to place is truly astonishing, and rarely permits the observer a correct impression of its form."
I have never seen a live marsh-shrew though I have hunted and set traps for them along various little brooks and similar moist and watery places. It would appear that they occupy much the same position among the shrews that minks and otters hold in the weasel tribe, swimming about or diving beneath the surface for minnows or water beetles, or racing along the margin to stop here and there to overturn wet leaves or dig in the mud for worms.
Tadpoles and caddis worms and the multitudinous variety of wriggling larvae that inhabit the bottoms of little brooks must furnish them with sufficient food at all seasons. In all likelihood they also make frequent excursions to higher and drier ground as the whim seizes them.
They are considerably larger than the common shrew and darker coloured, black above and white or ashy beneath; like muskrats they have the hind feet and tail broadened and fringed with stiff hairs for swimming.
Species and Varieties of Long-tailed Shrews