Biological Papers. 129 



freshly killed English sparrows were put in the cages in the even- 

 ing very little but bones and feathers would be left by morning. 

 All refused to touch corn, potatoes or sweet potatoes, except the 

 individual we kept so long. He would eat these articles with some 

 apparent relish, although he went about it very awkwardly. In- 

 stead of nibbling at a grain of corn as a rodent does, he would 

 crowd it against the ground with his cheek, and, gaining possession 

 of it, chew it in the side of his mouth much as a steer chews a 

 nubbin. The act of drinking water from a shallow dish was ac- 

 complished hog fashion, owing to the considerable projection of 

 his snout beyond the aperture of the mouth. 



When he was feeding on earthworms I could not see that he 

 made any attempt to first strip out the contents of the worm's ali- 

 mentary canal, as has been reported by one investigator. 



ECONOMIC STATUS. 



Considered from the standpoint of food habits alone, it has never 

 been shown that the mole affects detrimentally the interests of the 

 farmer or gardener. Indeed, it can be proven that quite the reverse 

 is true. When, however, the mole is charged with disfiguring 

 lawns and parks, destroying flower beds, tearing up the roots of 

 grasses, and making himself a general nuisance in small garden 

 plots, he will have to plead guilty. The evidence against him is 

 abundant and direct. In this connection he furnishes but another 

 illustration of the general principle that there is no such thing as 

 unqualified good. 



In dealing with a mole it seems to me that it is all a question of 

 whether or not that particular individual is out of place. The mole 

 has his place among the forces of nature, and no unimportant role 

 does he play. One of the most abundant of small mammals, his 

 kind has for ages been working over the soil and subsoil in the in- 

 terests of plant life. Within the limits of his normal range it is 

 almost safe to say that every square yard of arable land is traversed 

 one or more times each season by portions of his extensive runways. 

 A part of this work is visible at the surface, but much of it is not. 

 The hoe, the plow, the cultivator strike into unsuspected burrows 

 everywhere. After a flood has subsided on lowlands the unequal 

 settling at the surface of the ground discloses the fact that the soil 

 is simply honeycombed with the runways of the mole and one or 

 two other burrowing mammals. This tunneling and this shifting 

 of earth particles permits better aeration of the soil and favors the 

 entrance of water from the surface. It also mixes the soil and sub- 

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