Jackson pointed out (1928: 1) that "No other group of American mammals having a wide distribution, and in many localities an abundance of individuals, is so little known to the nonprofessional mammalogist as the long-tailed shrews." In Washington, especially in the coastal area of western Washington, shrews are widespread and abundant in many habitats. In some places they are the most common mammal present. In spite of this their presence is often unsuspected by persons that are otherwise alert to the animal life around them. This is even more surprising when one takes into account the facts that long-tailed shrews are diurnal as well as nocturnal and are less apt to detect the presence of man than are most other species of mammals. An important factor making long-tailed shrews inconspicuous is their small size, and contributing factors include their rapid movements and dull colors. On several occasions the writer, after seeing a long-tailed shrew vanish soundlessly under a log or into a patch of dead leaves, was left wondering if one actually had been seen or if instead his imagination had conjured up an animal from a dust mote or wind-blown leaf. The environment of the long-tailed shrews, except for the water shrews, is the zone at the very surface of the earth, just beneath the layer of moss, grass, dead leaves, and decaying vegetation. The removal of the covering vegetative layer reveals a maze of tiny tunnels, the branchings and complexities of which are infinite. Tiny traps baited with oats or meat and set in these runways catch the long-tailed shrews that inhabit them. The food of long-tailed shrews is varied. It is principally soft-bodied insects, insect pupae, and earthworms. At times a considerable quantity of soft vegetation and some seeds are eaten. Recent studies (Moore, 1940: 1942) have shown that by destroying seeds some shrews may adversely affect the reforestation of some coniferous trees. Shrews readily eat meat, and often destroy the small mammals, including other shrews, taken in the mammal collector's traps. Hamilton (1940: 485) found that in one species of long-tailed shrew in the United States individuals rarely lived more than one year. This seems not to be true of at least some of the species found in Washington. Parasites, internal or external, are not commonly found on long-tailed shrews. They are regularly eaten by owls and snakes, but most carnivorous mammals, though they readily kill them, rarely eat them. =Sorex cinereus= Kerr Cinereous shrew