. Annual report. Entomological Society of Ontario; Insect pests; Insects. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 19 ance of mice, they are in internal structure widely different. The rodent type of teeth as illustrated by the common meadow-mouse, or vole (Arvicolariparius), whose sharp, chisel- shaped incisors and flat-topped molars are admirably adapted to the gnawing and grinding of the farmer's grain and roots, is replaced in the moles and shrews by a totally different dentition. Here we have projecting incisors, mostly one pair, canines, pre-molars with pointed crowns and (usually) trifid molar
. Annual report. Entomological Society of Ontario; Insect pests; Insects. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 19 ance of mice, they are in internal structure widely different. The rodent type of teeth as illustrated by the common meadow-mouse, or vole (Arvicolariparius), whose sharp, chisel- shaped incisors and flat-topped molars are admirably adapted to the gnawing and grinding of the farmer's grain and roots, is replaced in the moles and shrews by a totally different dentition. Here we have projecting incisors, mostly one pair, canines, pre-molars with pointed crowns and (usually) trifid molars—a machine well fitted for the capture of terrestrial insects, whose hard elytra are crushed with a facility truly surprising. That the distinction between a shrew and a mouse is not more clearly known is a decided misfortune to both the farmer and the shrew. Meadow-mice feed on the farmer's crops and are generally treated as they truly are—that is, unmitigated pests, Shrews feed on insects and (in the case of one species, at least) on those very mice the farmer so cordially dislikes. Yet to the average farmer every little furry creature that runs through his fields is merely a mouse, nay even worse than that, if any distinction is made at all, it is usually against the poor little " screw mouse "—an unreasonable pre- judice allied to superstition. I have seen a farmer really afraid of a tiny shrew as it darted hither and thither with amazing rapidity in its frantic efforts to escape. To one of such I told, with a touch of irony, a curious superstition held by the Eskimo of Norton Sound, as related by Mr. Nelson in his " Natural History of ; " Those Indians claim that there is a kind of water-shrew living on the ice at sea which is exactly like the common land shrew in appearance, but which is endowed with demoniac quickness and power to work harm. If one of them is disturbed by a person it darts at the intruder, and burrowing under the sk
Size: 2660px × 939px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1872
