ed
away to pick up grain."

What is this little mouse-like thing in the grass? how quickly it
runs. Now I have got him. No! off again; burrowing under the
grass-roots. Now I have him safe enough; he cannot bite me with this
glove on. Look at the little rogue, with his soft short silky fur and
long nose. See how flexible that pointed nose is; how useful in
grubbing amongst the closest herbage, or under the surface of the
soil. How sharp are the little creature's teeth. With them he eats
worms and the larvae of various kinds of insects. Well, what is its
name? It is the common shrew, and though the form of the body is
mouse-shaped, it is, properly speaking, not a mouse at all, being much
more nearly related to the mole. It is said that shrews are very fond
of fighting, and that if two be confined together in a box, the
stronger will conquer the weaker and then eat him. Moles are said to
eat their small relatives, but I have never had any evidence of the
fact, though it is probable enough. May wanted to know whether cats
eat shrews. I have often tried cats with dead shrews, and have always
found they will not touch them. I dare say, however, they would kill
them. The smell of the shrew is certainly unpleasant, as you may find
out from this little fellow I hold in my hand. Mind he does not bite
your nose. Now we have examined him I shall let him go. It is no
pleasure to take an animal's life, and as this little shrew does no
harm but good by destroying insect larvae, it would be a shame to hurt
him. Where injurious creatures must be killed, let us always be
careful to take away life so as to cause the least possible pain. Now,
would any of you have ever thought that the little shrew I have just
released had ever been supposed to be one of the most dangerous
enemies to cattle? This was really once believed by our ancestors, who
thought that a shrew, by running over the backs of cattle, made them
weak in the loins, and that its bite made a beast swell at the heart
and die. Absurd as was the belief, the supposed cure for the injury
was, if possible, still more ridiculous. It consisted in passing over
the cow's back the twigs of a shrew ash. "Now a shrew ash," says
Gilbert White, "is an ash whose twigs or 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 delete