That little long-sharp-nosed mouse?

 

November 26.

November 26, 2016

What that little long-sharp-nosed mouse I found in the Walden road to-day?

Brown above, gray beneath, black incisors, five toes with claws on each foot, long snout with small blunt black extremity, many mustachios, eyes far forward feet light or dirty white, tail 1 1/2 inches long, whole length 3 3/4 inches; on causeway.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 26, 1854

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What that little long-sharp-nosed mouse I found in the Walden road to-day? See January 29, 1853 ("I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden, three or four rods from the shore, its tail sticking out a hole. It had apparently run into this hole when full of water, as if on land, and been drowned and frozen.");  July 12, 1856 ("In the still wet road on the hill, just beyond Lincoln bound, a short-tailed shrew (Sorex brevicaudus of Say), dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before."); July 31, 1856 ("A short-tailed shrew dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before. "); May 1, 1857 ("Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path.")

Note: What that mouse?  The  term mouse  includes not only the typical mouse and other members of genus Mus, but also other  species or  genera such as the vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus ) sometimes called the field mouse or meadow mouse, and the  deer mouse (Peromyscus). HDT's Journal  refers to meadow mice (short-tailed or long-tailed (Arvicola)), deer mice (white-bellied, white-footed, or wood (Mus leucopus) ) and a jumping mouse (Gerbillus Canadensis) . Thompson, Natural History of Vermont, describes only the common mouse (mus musculus), the jumping mouse, and the meadow mouse,

Today's long-sharp-nosed "mouse" is not the short-tailed meadow mouse. See August 25, 1858 (“The short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta. . . . above, it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath. Tail but little more than one inch long. Its legs must be very short, for I can hardly glimpse them. Its nose is not sharp.”) Today's mouse is not the white bellied, like the deer mouse.

Surely, today's long-sharp-nosed-five-toed-black-incisored "mouse" is a shrew: "small, mole-like mammals that look a bit like long-nosed mice" See July 12, 1856 ("A short-tailed shrew (Sorex brevicaudus of Say), dead after the rain . . . Lead-color above, somewhat lighter beneath, with a long snout, 3/8 inch beyond lower jaw, incisors black"]  Deer mice have four toes on their front feet and five toes on their rear feet. Shrews have five toes on both their front and five feet. See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse