[Contents]CHAPTER XTHE MOLE’S NEST—THE SHREW-MOUSE“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones undertaken from day to day.“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the[78]dirt thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking beneath these crumbling hillocks.Mole’s BurrowMole’s Burrow“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b)[79]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage markedp, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than[80]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouseJaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are[81]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.“These little creatures are to be found in fields and meadows and gardens, and in winter they come near our houses and make their nests under straw-stacks and dung-heaps. In very cold weather they even find their way into stables, where they live on cockroaches and wood-lice; but at the approach of summer they are off again to the open fields, where they complete the mole’s work of extermination. Or they may seek some garden, where they protect the wall-fruit and the vegetable patches from the devouring[82]insect hordes without ever touching any of the growing crops themselves. The teeth of the shrew-mouse are not made for the chewing of vegetable food; like the mole, this tiny creature is carnivorous. Moreover, in their hunting-raids, which are so greatly to our advantage, shrew-mice never do us the slightest injury of any sort, as they never bore tunnels, but merely use the natural cracks in the soil. They cannot be reproached with severing roots or throwing up mounds of earth, as moles do; and yet they are perhaps more an object of general execration than the latter. It is considered a praiseworthy act to crush them every time one gets a chance.Shrew-mouseShrew-mouse“How has so tiny, pleasing, and useful a creature managed thus to incur the hatred of man? We have here, my children, another instance of the foolish way we accept the first notion that enters our heads, without trying to test it by observation and reason. It is said that the shrew-mouse bites horses’ feet and leaves incurable wounds. But how can a shrew-mouse, whose head is at most no larger than a pea, bite a horse and pierce its hide which is the thickness of a finger or more? Again, they say the shrew-mouse is venomous even for man. Some time ago, children, I told you about the viper.1You[83]know what its weapons are,—two long, sharp teeth or fangs having little channels through which it introduces a drop of venom into the wound it inflicts. Well, I assure you the shrew-mouse has no weapon like the viper’s; it has neither fangs nor a poison-sac, but is wholly harmless to man and horse. Insects alone need fear its fine teeth,—not that they are poisoned in any way, but because they crunch their little victims very neatly.“I think I see why the shrew-mouse has incurred the charge of being venomous. The pretty little creature exhales an odor; it smells rather strongly of musk. The cat, taking it for a mouse, sometimes chases it, but, repelled by its odor, never eats it. The first to observe this fact said to himself: ‘As the cat does not dare eat it the shrew-mouse must be venomous.’ Ever since then this false belief has passed for truth in the country, and no one has taken the trouble to look into the matter more closely; so that the poor little shrew-mouse, one of our most useful and harmless helpers, falls a victim to the stupidity of man, whose gardens it protects.”[84]1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑
[Contents]CHAPTER XTHE MOLE’S NEST—THE SHREW-MOUSE“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones undertaken from day to day.“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the[78]dirt thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking beneath these crumbling hillocks.Mole’s BurrowMole’s Burrow“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b)[79]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage markedp, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than[80]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouseJaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are[81]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.“These little creatures are to be found in fields and meadows and gardens, and in winter they come near our houses and make their nests under straw-stacks and dung-heaps. In very cold weather they even find their way into stables, where they live on cockroaches and wood-lice; but at the approach of summer they are off again to the open fields, where they complete the mole’s work of extermination. Or they may seek some garden, where they protect the wall-fruit and the vegetable patches from the devouring[82]insect hordes without ever touching any of the growing crops themselves. The teeth of the shrew-mouse are not made for the chewing of vegetable food; like the mole, this tiny creature is carnivorous. Moreover, in their hunting-raids, which are so greatly to our advantage, shrew-mice never do us the slightest injury of any sort, as they never bore tunnels, but merely use the natural cracks in the soil. They cannot be reproached with severing roots or throwing up mounds of earth, as moles do; and yet they are perhaps more an object of general execration than the latter. It is considered a praiseworthy act to crush them every time one gets a chance.Shrew-mouseShrew-mouse“How has so tiny, pleasing, and useful a creature managed thus to incur the hatred of man? We have here, my children, another instance of the foolish way we accept the first notion that enters our heads, without trying to test it by observation and reason. It is said that the shrew-mouse bites horses’ feet and leaves incurable wounds. But how can a shrew-mouse, whose head is at most no larger than a pea, bite a horse and pierce its hide which is the thickness of a finger or more? Again, they say the shrew-mouse is venomous even for man. Some time ago, children, I told you about the viper.1You[83]know what its weapons are,—two long, sharp teeth or fangs having little channels through which it introduces a drop of venom into the wound it inflicts. Well, I assure you the shrew-mouse has no weapon like the viper’s; it has neither fangs nor a poison-sac, but is wholly harmless to man and horse. Insects alone need fear its fine teeth,—not that they are poisoned in any way, but because they crunch their little victims very neatly.“I think I see why the shrew-mouse has incurred the charge of being venomous. The pretty little creature exhales an odor; it smells rather strongly of musk. The cat, taking it for a mouse, sometimes chases it, but, repelled by its odor, never eats it. The first to observe this fact said to himself: ‘As the cat does not dare eat it the shrew-mouse must be venomous.’ Ever since then this false belief has passed for truth in the country, and no one has taken the trouble to look into the matter more closely; so that the poor little shrew-mouse, one of our most useful and harmless helpers, falls a victim to the stupidity of man, whose gardens it protects.”[84]1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑
CHAPTER XTHE MOLE’S NEST—THE SHREW-MOUSE
“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones undertaken from day to day.“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the[78]dirt thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking beneath these crumbling hillocks.Mole’s BurrowMole’s Burrow“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b)[79]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage markedp, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than[80]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouseJaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are[81]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.“These little creatures are to be found in fields and meadows and gardens, and in winter they come near our houses and make their nests under straw-stacks and dung-heaps. In very cold weather they even find their way into stables, where they live on cockroaches and wood-lice; but at the approach of summer they are off again to the open fields, where they complete the mole’s work of extermination. Or they may seek some garden, where they protect the wall-fruit and the vegetable patches from the devouring[82]insect hordes without ever touching any of the growing crops themselves. The teeth of the shrew-mouse are not made for the chewing of vegetable food; like the mole, this tiny creature is carnivorous. Moreover, in their hunting-raids, which are so greatly to our advantage, shrew-mice never do us the slightest injury of any sort, as they never bore tunnels, but merely use the natural cracks in the soil. They cannot be reproached with severing roots or throwing up mounds of earth, as moles do; and yet they are perhaps more an object of general execration than the latter. It is considered a praiseworthy act to crush them every time one gets a chance.Shrew-mouseShrew-mouse“How has so tiny, pleasing, and useful a creature managed thus to incur the hatred of man? We have here, my children, another instance of the foolish way we accept the first notion that enters our heads, without trying to test it by observation and reason. It is said that the shrew-mouse bites horses’ feet and leaves incurable wounds. But how can a shrew-mouse, whose head is at most no larger than a pea, bite a horse and pierce its hide which is the thickness of a finger or more? Again, they say the shrew-mouse is venomous even for man. Some time ago, children, I told you about the viper.1You[83]know what its weapons are,—two long, sharp teeth or fangs having little channels through which it introduces a drop of venom into the wound it inflicts. Well, I assure you the shrew-mouse has no weapon like the viper’s; it has neither fangs nor a poison-sac, but is wholly harmless to man and horse. Insects alone need fear its fine teeth,—not that they are poisoned in any way, but because they crunch their little victims very neatly.“I think I see why the shrew-mouse has incurred the charge of being venomous. The pretty little creature exhales an odor; it smells rather strongly of musk. The cat, taking it for a mouse, sometimes chases it, but, repelled by its odor, never eats it. The first to observe this fact said to himself: ‘As the cat does not dare eat it the shrew-mouse must be venomous.’ Ever since then this false belief has passed for truth in the country, and no one has taken the trouble to look into the matter more closely; so that the poor little shrew-mouse, one of our most useful and harmless helpers, falls a victim to the stupidity of man, whose gardens it protects.”[84]
“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones undertaken from day to day.
“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the[78]dirt thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking beneath these crumbling hillocks.
Mole’s BurrowMole’s Burrow
Mole’s Burrow
“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b)[79]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”
“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”
“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.
“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage markedp, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than[80]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouseJaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse
Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse
“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”
“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are[81]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.
“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.
“These little creatures are to be found in fields and meadows and gardens, and in winter they come near our houses and make their nests under straw-stacks and dung-heaps. In very cold weather they even find their way into stables, where they live on cockroaches and wood-lice; but at the approach of summer they are off again to the open fields, where they complete the mole’s work of extermination. Or they may seek some garden, where they protect the wall-fruit and the vegetable patches from the devouring[82]insect hordes without ever touching any of the growing crops themselves. The teeth of the shrew-mouse are not made for the chewing of vegetable food; like the mole, this tiny creature is carnivorous. Moreover, in their hunting-raids, which are so greatly to our advantage, shrew-mice never do us the slightest injury of any sort, as they never bore tunnels, but merely use the natural cracks in the soil. They cannot be reproached with severing roots or throwing up mounds of earth, as moles do; and yet they are perhaps more an object of general execration than the latter. It is considered a praiseworthy act to crush them every time one gets a chance.
Shrew-mouseShrew-mouse
Shrew-mouse
“How has so tiny, pleasing, and useful a creature managed thus to incur the hatred of man? We have here, my children, another instance of the foolish way we accept the first notion that enters our heads, without trying to test it by observation and reason. It is said that the shrew-mouse bites horses’ feet and leaves incurable wounds. But how can a shrew-mouse, whose head is at most no larger than a pea, bite a horse and pierce its hide which is the thickness of a finger or more? Again, they say the shrew-mouse is venomous even for man. Some time ago, children, I told you about the viper.1You[83]know what its weapons are,—two long, sharp teeth or fangs having little channels through which it introduces a drop of venom into the wound it inflicts. Well, I assure you the shrew-mouse has no weapon like the viper’s; it has neither fangs nor a poison-sac, but is wholly harmless to man and horse. Insects alone need fear its fine teeth,—not that they are poisoned in any way, but because they crunch their little victims very neatly.
“I think I see why the shrew-mouse has incurred the charge of being venomous. The pretty little creature exhales an odor; it smells rather strongly of musk. The cat, taking it for a mouse, sometimes chases it, but, repelled by its odor, never eats it. The first to observe this fact said to himself: ‘As the cat does not dare eat it the shrew-mouse must be venomous.’ Ever since then this false belief has passed for truth in the country, and no one has taken the trouble to look into the matter more closely; so that the poor little shrew-mouse, one of our most useful and harmless helpers, falls a victim to the stupidity of man, whose gardens it protects.”[84]
1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑
1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑
1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑
1See “The Story-Book of Science.”↑