the center of a whirling column of air, which sucks up the fish from the water and carries them through the air, dropping them at some distance from their homes. On the Isle of Mull herrings fell on a hill 1,500 feet from the sea and 500 feet above it. Sometimes the fishes are alive, but more often they are dead. Showers of frogs and of dead flies have also been noted.
Shreve′port, La., a town, is the center of a region rich in cotton and cattle. Its chief trade is in cattle, sheep, wool, hides and cotton. Shreveport is on Red River and numerous railroads, — the Texas Pacific, the Houston and Shreveport, the St. Louis Southwestern, the Queen and Crescent and the Texarkana and Fort Smith. A large wholesale trade for the surrounding district centers at Shreveport, especially in groceries and dry goods. The town dates settlement from 1833, incorporation from 1839. Population 28,015.
|
| COMMON SHREW |
Shrew, an insect-eating animal having the general appearance of a mouse, but belonging to quite a different order. The mice are gnawers, the shrews are insect-eaters and related to the moles. They have a sharp, pointed snout and jaws with numerous, sharp teeth. The eyes and ears are minute. They come out occasionally from their burrows, but seem very helpless above ground, and are exceedingly shy. They feed both day and night. They do not burrow deeply, their holes being under roots and in logs. They inhabit the Old and New Worlds, living in fields and open woods. Besides insects they eat worms and mollusks. Water-shrews exist also in North America and in Europe.
|
| SHRIKE |
Shrike, a song-bird found in all parts of the world except South America. Shrikes, besides eating insects, prey upon field-mice and small birds, capturing them with their bills and not with their talons. Owing to the weakness of their feet, their prey is impaled on thorns, and this habit has gained for shrikes the name of butcher-birds. There are about 200 species, but only two in the United States. The great northern shrike, which is a winter visitor, is a little above ten inches long, gray above with a black and white tail and whitish undersurface with black bars. It nests in the arctic circle, but is seen from October to April as far south as Virginia. The loggerhead shrike is common in the Mississippi valley, central New York, Vermont and Maine. It is about nine inches long and colored like the great northern shrike, except that there are no black bars on the breast. Its song is rather unmusical.
Shrimp, small, slender and long-tailed Crustacea inhabiting salt water. The prawns are closely related and are commonly served in shrimp-salad. These animals are all small, in general form resembling a lobster or crayfish. Some are nearly transparent. They live on the sand in salt water. They are taken in great numbers for food, especially in England and in France.
SHRIMP
Siam (sī́-ăm′), Gulf of, an arm of the China Sea, south of Siam and west of Cochin-China. It is 245 miles wide at its entrance, and extends inland for 390 miles.
Siam, Kingdom of, in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, is a country whose limits have varied much at different periods of its history, most of the border-lands being occupied by tribes more or less independent. By the treaty of September, 1893, Mekong River was made the boundary between Siam and the French possessions; but in January, 1896, the British and French governments came to an agreement by which France appropriated the territory of 100,000 square miles lying between the Mekong and the Anam hills, thus leaving to Siam a territory of 220,000 square miles. Negotiations have been in progress recently for a new British-Siamese treaty, which will modify British extraterritorial rights in Siam and cede the Siamese tributary states of Kelartan and Tringaur to Great Britain.
Surface and Drainage. The plain of the Menam valley and the Korat tableland, from 400 to 1,000 feet high, form the larger part of the country. The Menam, 600 miles long, is the principal river, but the bar at its mouth prevents ships of more than 13 feet draught from ascending to Bangkok. Mekhong or Cambodia River
