Note 187 — {137} CHAPTER VIII
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1. Sorex parvus, Say.—Brownish cinereous above; beneath cinereous; teeth blackish; tail short, of moderate thickness.
Body above brownish cinereous, beneath cinereous; head elongated; eyes and ears concealed; whiskers long, the longest nearly attaining the back of the head; nose naked emarginate; front teeth black, lateral ones piceous; feet whitish, five-toed; nails prominent, acute, white; tail short, subcylindric, of moderate thickness, slightly thicker in the middle, whitish beneath.
Length from tip of nose to root of tail, 2 3⁄8 inches.
Length of tail, 0 3⁄4 inches.
Length from the upper teeth to tip of nose, 0 3⁄20 inches.
Mr. Peale caught this animal in a pitfall, which he had dug for the purpose of catching a wolf. It is a female.
Barton, in his Medical and Physical Journal for 1806, p. 67, says, that, "Sorex minutissimus of Zimmerman, has been discovered in the trans-Mississippi part of the United States, in the country that is watered by the Missouri;" —had he reference to this species?
This sorex minutissimus, is probably synonymous with S. exilis, to which our specimens cannot be referred, whilst the character attributed to that species, of "tail very thick in the middle," is considered essential.
2. Sorex brevicaudus, Say.— Blackish-plumbeous above, beneath rather lighter; teeth, blackish; tail, short, robust.
Total length from nose to tip of tail, 45⁄8 inch.
Total length of the tail, 1
Total length from the upper teeth to the tip of nose, 01⁄8
Above blackish plumbeous, when viewed from before; silvery plumbeous when viewed from behind; fur dense, rather long; beneath rather paler; head large; eyes very minute; ears white, entirely concealed beneath the fur, aperture very large, with two distinct semisepta, (tragus and antitragus?) which are sparsely hairy at tip; rostrum short, with a slightly impressed, abbreviated line above; nose livid brown, emarginate; mouth margined with whitish and with sparse short hairs; teeth piceous-black at tip; feet, white, the second, third, and fourth toes subequal, the first and fifth shorter, the former rather shortest, anterior with but very few hairs, nearly naked; nails nearly as long as the toes; tail with rather sparse hairs, nearly of equal diameter, but slightly thickest in the middle, depressed, and nearly as long as the posterior feet.
This specimen, which is a male, closely resembles S. parvus, but it is much larger; the head is proportionably much larger and more elongated; the tail more robust, and the inferior anterior pair of incisores are similar to those of S. constrictus, fig. 7. pl. 15. of the Mem. du Mus. by Mr. Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The incisors of the superior jaw are twelve in number, in a cranium belonging to this species, five on each side in addition the two larger anterior ones; the posterior tooth of the lateral ones is smallest.
May not this be the animal mentioned by the late professor Barton in his Medical and Physical Journal, for March, 1816, which, he says, "may be called the black shrew?" I do not know that the black shrew has ever received any further notice, unless it is the same species to which Mr. Ord has applied the name of Sorex niger.—James.