Star-nosed Mole 



I have never found their nests or young, and can not help 

 wondering how they manage in times of freshet, when the 

 meadows and swamps where they dwell are submerged. 



But the old ones show no fear of the water; I have fre- 

 quently seen them swimming both under water and on the 

 surface, even where the current was pretty strong, and have 

 always observed them to be perfectly confident and unfrightened 

 at such times. 



Drought seems to affect them much more severely than 

 freshet, and in hot weather, after a few weeks without rain, 

 many of them are to be found dead, evidently having perished 

 from thirst. The star-nosed mole feeds principally upon worms 

 and whatever else of insect life it comes across in its under- 

 ground rambles, and judging by the carnivorous tastes of its 

 relatives, I have little doubt that it varies this diet with small 

 fish and reptiles and their eggs as well as the flesh of warm- 

 blooded creatures whenever it is to be obtained. 



If they really hibernate in winter it must be only in an 

 interrupted sort of way, for it is not very uncommon for them to 

 be out along unfrozen brooks in the coldest weather, and certainly 

 either this or the common mole is often moving about just beneath 

 deep snow, the peculiar position of the fore paws of the creature 

 leaving a track not easily to be confounded with that of any 

 other animal. 



The most feasible theory would seem to be that they pass the 

 winter deep down in the swamps, below the reach of the frosts, 

 where they may carry on their subterranean work at their leisure, 

 occasionally entering brooks to swim about beneath the ice in 

 pursuit of water-beetles and the like. 



One, which I caught in the early part of last February, 1901, 

 must have been swimming near the middle of the brook not 

 far from the bottom, where the water was six or eight inches 

 deep; and although it had been in the trap under water for 

 several days where I found it, its fur still kept out the water 

 and dried as readily as otter fur, exhibiting the true quality of 

 the coat of a swimming animal. 



What is the life of these little earth folk like ? They see 

 and know little of the things most familiar to us and the other 

 creatures that love the sun-warmed air and the sky. 



Most so-called nocturnal creatures are fond of the sun and 



rot 



