21 



amounting in three cases to 30 per cent., and in one to 35 per cent, 

 of the food. 



The known dates of capture of the moles were as follows: Janu- 

 ary I, March i, April 5, May 17, June 19, July i, August i, and 

 October 4. Seven of the fifty-six specimens were presented without 

 dates. 



Twenty-eight of the stomachs were well filled with food, 21 were 

 moderately filled, and in 7 there was but a small amount. 



CONCLUSIONS OF OTHER W^RITERS 



In the Seventh Report of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment 

 Station (1894) H. Garman reports the examination of fourteen mole 

 stomachs. He found some fragments of dead parts of grasses and 

 other plants, taken, as he believes, by accident while animal food was 

 being devoured, but no traces of fresh plant structures. He says: 

 "I am disposed to accjuit the mole of the charge of intentionally eat- 

 ing vegetation. I do not offer this as a final conclusion, however; 

 more material should be studied." 



Fifty stomachs containing food were examined by L. L. Dyche, 

 as reported in Volume XVHI of the Transactions of the Kansas 

 Academy of Science. He says that vegetable food, almost all of it 

 corn, amounted to 3.7 per cent, of the whole. Corn was found in 

 4 stomachs, in the ratios of 10, 30, 60, and 65 per cent, of the food 

 of these animals, respectively. The last tw^o were taken in January 

 and October. "It is evident," he says, "that the damage done to 

 lawns, gardens, and fields by moles is due chiefly, not to the food the 

 animals eat, but rather to their manner of securing it." 



Another paper on this subject is published in Bulletin No. 31 of 

 the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Of 36 stomachs, ex- 

 amined by Hariy Wilson, only one contained green tissue of grain, 

 but this had been bitten off in pieces by the teeth of the mole. One 

 mole, killed in the ground under a corn shock, contained corn about 

 equivalent to a single kernel. Wilson believes that all the damage 

 done by the eating of grains, seeds, and fibrous roots, and by the 

 gnawing of tubers, which is attributed to moles is due to mice, for it is 

 a fact, he says, that the runways of the mole are often occupied dur- 

 ing the latter part of the summer by the common brown field- or 

 meadow-mouse. 



