S. minutus has the distinction of being the smallest British mammal; it is scarcer than the last. This form is found upon the Alps, as is also the peculiarly Alpine species S. alpinus, which inhabits the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Hartz.
Crossopus fodiens, the Water Shrew, has also brown-stained teeth. It is not uncommon in this country, and lives in burrows excavated by the sides of the streams which it affects.
Besides these two genera, Soriculus, Blarina, and Notiosorex have red-tipped teeth. In Crocidura, Myosorex, Diplomesodon, Anurosorex, Chimarrogale, and Nectogale the teeth are white-tipped. These are all the genera of the family allowed by the late Dr. Dobson in a review of that family.[[382]]
Chimarrogale and Nectogale are aquatic genera. The former
consists of a Himalayan and Bornean, and of a Japanese species, which have not webbed feet, but have a tail with a fringe of elongated hairs.
Nectogale elegans is one of the characteristic animals of the Thibetan plateau. It has webbed feet. The teeth are as in Chimarrogale I 3/2 C 1/0 Pm 1/1 M 3/3.
The other genera are terrestrial in habit.
Sub-Order 2. DERMOPTERA.
Fig. 253.—Galeopithecus volans. × ⅓. (After Vogt and Specht.)