Thanks cr0sh!
Out of curiosity, what's a good way of knowing how many mA a piece of hardware is going to pull? I'm assuming smeezekitty's assumption that the motor would be more than 40mA was based upon some pre-existing knowledge--but is there a basic cheat sheet or rule of thumb?
Does the motor shield make this sort of simple interaction (Arduino to pager motor) easier? From what I can tell from the FAQ it's designed more for larger 6v+ motors.
I noticed the specs have "4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, internal kickback protection diodes. Can run motors on 4.5VDC to 36VDC."