A, Skull of an insect-eating animal (_Insectivore_), showing the numerous pointed teeth. B, Skull of a gnawing animal (_Rodent_) showing the large chisel teeth in front, and the gap between these and the hind teeth. ] But these animals have another and quite a different set of companions, as you will learn if you are lucky enough, by looking carefully along the hedge, to startle a little shrew in its quest for worms, or to catch a hedgehog shuffling along at a sharp trot after his nightly meal of beetles, slugs, and snails; nay, you may even, if it be early summer, come across a mole, or find two fighting fiercely together for possession of the only thing they come to the upper world to fetch--a wife. These creatures have not the long front chisels of the hare or the shrew; on the contrary, their mouth is small, and crowded with a number of fine pointed teeth (see A, Fig. 55), of which even the back ones have sharp cusps or points, well fitted for crushing insects. For these are _Insectivora_ or insect-eaters; and while the rodents are gnawing at roots and leaves and nuts, these devourers of small fry mingle with them very amicably; while both groups only ask that the night-owl may not see them in their evening wanderings, nor the weasel and his bloodthirsty tribe attack them in their homes. For, ever since they began the race of life, long long ago, these two very different orders of animals have been trying to feed without risk, and to keep out of the way of flesh-eating birds and larger creatures. And so it has come to pass that, though the rodents are mostly plant-eaters, while their associates are insect-eaters, yet, as both are trying to conceal themselves, and get their food by stealth, they have acquired curiously similar external forms, weapons, and habits of life, with the one exception of their teeth and the manner of eating their food.