40 REVISION OF AMEBIC AN MOLES— TRUE. vol.xix 



HISTORY OF THE SPECIES. 



This species occurs in the teiitli edition ot LiuniT?iis's Systema Na- 

 tune' under the name of Sorcx ((({Katiciis. Tlie di;igiiosis and descrip- 

 tion given are quite accurate and there is no doubt as to tlie species 

 intended. The only synonym, however, is Talpa^ Virginimms^ niger, 

 Seba,^ wliich, thougii cited here and for many years after as an equiva- 

 lent of N. ((fiuaticu.s, 1 find to be identical witli Talpa europcm. As Seba 

 gives an excellent figure of his species, there can be uo doubt as to its 

 identity, though why he did not recognize that it was the Euroi)ean 

 mole, is not readily explainable.' 



As authority in regard to the habitat of his Sore.v afjuatlcus, Linna-us 

 cites P. Kalm. Kalm saw the burrows of the mole on the shores of the 

 Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.'' He remarks on the strength and 

 other characteristics of one captured (probably at some subsequent 

 time), but does not describe it in detail, saying that he intends to do so 

 in another work.^ 



Kerr, in his English edition of Linufipus's Systema Katurte.'^ published 

 in 1791*, introduces an American species, under the name of Talpa fusva 

 or the Brown Mole. This is based primarily on the Brown Mole of 

 Pennant, although iSorcx aqitaficits, Linn., and also the Talpa, Vir(ji)i- 

 ia)nis, nlger of Seba, are quoted as synonyms.' Pennant's "Brown 

 Mole" is in turn Liuna^us's Sorer aquaUcus.^ Pennant's specimens 

 were from New York, whence he obtained his Yellow Mole and also his 

 liadiated ^ and Long-tailed Moles.^ He mentions especially in this eon- 



1 Page 53. 



= Mus., I, p. 51, pi. 32, fig. 3. 



^'Erxlebeu seems to have suspected that snch was the case. He qnotos Seba's 

 name under Sorvx aquaticua, with a mark of interrogation, and adds "videtiis jiotins 

 varietas Talpaeeuropeae" (Syst. Regn. Anim., 1777, p. 123). Shaw was struck by the 

 resemblance between Seba's species and the European mole, but it did not occur to 

 him to doubt the correctness of the locality given by Seba. He writes as Ibllows : 

 "This species so completely resembles the common European mole in almost every 

 particular, that it might pass for a variety of that animal. * * * It seems to 

 have been first described by Seba, and is, according to that autlior, a native of Vir- 

 ginia" (Gen. Zoology, I, pt. 1, ]\Iam., 1800, p. 521). 



Other moles represented on plate 32 of Seba's work have erroneous localities 

 assigned to them, and one figure (fig. 2) ap]>ears to be entirely incorrect, it repre- 

 sents a mole like Tal2)(( cnropna, with fore feet like a Chrjitiochloris. 



•• Kalm's Travels into North America. Forster's English trans., vol. 1, 1770, p. 90. 

 Forster thinks the species here referred to is Coiidiihira cristata, which does not seem 

 to me probable. 



■■^This intention was never carried into efi'ect, so far as I know. 



•^Kerr, Animal Kingdom, 1792, p. 202. 



'Probably Kerr did not propose to establish a new species. He writes : " This and 

 the Crested species, though placed in the Systema Naturte among the shrews, have 

 the manners and figure of the mole, etc." He probably considered that he had a 

 right to give a new specific name in transferring the species to the genus Talpa. 



"Pennant, (,)wadrupeds, 3d edition, 1793. p. 232. I have not the first edition. 



^Equivalent to Condijlnra crlsiaia. 



