130 Kansas Academy of Science. 



soil, carrying humus farther down and bringing the subsoil nearer 

 the surface where its elements of plant food may be made available 

 by the agencies at work there. As an offset to this good work of 

 the mole, it may be argued that the earthworms, which form a large 

 part of his diet, play a similar part in the economy of nature. This 

 is true, but who knows but that the earthworm, which lives partly 

 upon green vegetation, might become a terrible scourge if the mole 

 were not placed as a check upon its increase. Nature preserves 

 the balance of power very nicely in the animal world if left to her- 

 self. It is only when blundering man interferes that trouble looms 

 up. This has proven true only too often in our dealings with 

 mammals and birds. 



In support of the statement above, that moles are beneficial ani- 

 mals from the standpoint of their food habits also, one need only 

 to weigh the results of stomach examinations for evidence. One 

 of the larger items of food — earthworms — has already been dis- 

 posed of. An equally large, or often larger, item is made up of 

 white grubs, those scourges of grass and other valuable plant roots. 

 The table of stomach analyses shows that nearly two-thirds of the 

 moles had eaten white grubs. One had performed the astonishing 

 feat of eating 175, another 73 and another 55. For his good work 

 in destroying grubs alone, therefore, the mole deserves much credit. 

 Among the beetles, also, and the insect larvpe in general which form 

 a considerable part of the mole's food, are many forms that are in- 

 jurious to agriculture. On the other hand, perhaps the bulk of the 

 beetles were of those ground types that are predaceous in habit, 

 and therefore may be considered either neutral or beneficial. It 

 -would be a tedious if not impossible undertaking to attempt to so 

 classify these beetles as to determine the economic status of each 

 individual or lot. In the vast majority of cases the fragmental 

 character of the remains no more than served to distinguish the 

 order. The spiders, centipedes and ants listed in the table may, so 

 far as our present knowledge goes, be reckoned as neutral or bene- 

 ficial in their relation to agricultural interests. 



The proportionately large amount of food consumed by a mole 

 in a given time serves also to raise him in the rank of importance 

 as a destroyer of noxious insects and their larvae. A mole's appe- 

 tite seems to be insatiable. Experiments with captives show that 

 they will usually eat voraciously as long as they are supplied with 

 food to their liking, consuming often more than their own weight 

 in a day. This is not gluttony, as it is sometimes characterized. 

 The tremendous amount of energy expended in plowing through 



