The Shrews IS
bred once or twice already during the year, or merely the first offspring of late
young born in the previous year, it is impossible to say, and evidence on this
point is much to be desired. Bell’s estimate of five to seven young ones at birth
is correct, though I have twice seen eight, and ten are not unknown. The young
are at first blind and are naked, but they grow rapidly. Their power of sight,
even when full grown, seems to be but feeble.
The latest date of which I have any note when a nest containing young
Shrews has been found is November 19, 1903- This family was discovered by
Mr. A. Thorburn in a nest of oak leaves, situated in a rubbish heap at Hascombe,
Surrey.
I have reason to believe that Shrews sometimes assemble in numbers in the
autumn, and, following a main trail, migrate out of pastures where food or water
has become scarce. This is without doubt the case with the Lesser Shrew, and
the habit of autumnal migration is probably shared by its larger cousin. It is at
this season, August and September, that we find numbers of Shrews lying dead
on roads and paths.
Various explanations of this mortality have been suggested, the most common
one being that carnivorous animals, nauseated by the scent of the glandular
secretion, drop the Shrew after killing it. Though many animals, such as cats
and dogs, will reject the Shrew after killing it, the mortality is just as great in
places where neither of these animals can have been abroad. Kestrels, owls, and
harriers, which all prey on Shrews, will swallow them with avidity, so the death
rate, such as it is, must be due to some other, probably internal, cause. Scarcity
of food may account for it, but not drought, for in places where Lesser Shrews
were abundant I have found many dead while pools of water lay around in every
direction. Internecine war doubtless accounts for much loss of life in the spring,
but this is unlikely in the autumn, except perhaps among very late breeding
individuals. An old superstition in this connection is that Shrews cannot cross
a path used by man, the smell of the human foot being instantly fatal to them.
This fable, ridiculous as it is, is very ancient and widespread among unsophisticated
peoples.1
Mr. Douglas English, in a letter to me, April 1904, suggests an entirely new
1 Mr. F. J. Jackson, the well-known hunter, and Sub-Commissioner in British East Africa, recently told me that one day
when out hunting in Uganda he passed on a native footpath the dead body of a Shrew. He just observed it and passed on,
but his gunbearer, a raw native, immediately called his attention to the diminutive beast, thinking he had not seen it, and
remarked, ‘ Do you know, Master, that when that animal crosses the human spoor it dies.’