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.
[188] See Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Appendix, vol. vii, doc. xviii.—Ed.
Footnotes to Chapter IX:
[189] I. Vespertilio pruinosus.—Ears large, short, not so long as the head, hairy on the exterior side more than half their length; tragus very obtuse at tip, arcuated; canine teeth large, prominent; incisors, only one distinct one on each side, placed very near the canine, conic, almost on a line with it, and furnished with a small tubercle on its exterior base; nostrils distant; fur of the back, long, black brown at base, then pale brownish-yellow, then blackish, then white; towards the rump dark ferruginous takes the place of the brownish-yellow on the fur; beneath the colours are similar to those of the back; but on the anterior portion of the breast the fur is not tipped with white, and on the throat it is dull yellowish-white dusky at base; the brachial membrane is densely hairy on the anterior margin beneath; interfemoral membrane covered with fur: length nearly 4½ inches.
This bat is common in this region, and was observed by Mr. Thomas Nuttall at Council Bluffs. It is a fine large species, and remarkable for its many-coloured fur. It has much affinity with the New York bat, (V. novaboracensis,) but is more than double its size, and is distinguished from it by many minor characters.
The late professor Barton, presented a specimen of this bat to the Philadelphia museum, that had been captured in Philadelphia.