22 



CONCLUSION 



The contents of the stomachs here reported, have shown perhaps 

 a greater amount of insect food and somewhat smaller ratios of earth- 

 womis than those examined by other writers, but there is a sub- 

 stantial agreement to the effect that half or more of the food of the 

 mole consists of insects and their larv?e, most of them noxious. So 

 far as its food is concerned, the mole is thus beneficial, on the whole. 

 There is no direct evidence that it will eat potatoes or other tubers, 

 but circumstantial evidence on this point is so strong that the mole 

 must remain under suspicion, even admitting that mice of herbiv- 

 orous habit may occupy mole-runs in fall. In this paper it is shown, 

 for the first time, that corn may fomi an important item of the food 

 of moles ; that recently planted corn is sometimes destroyed by them ; 

 and that if numerous in com fields in spring, they are capable of 

 doing considerable damage there. 



October, 1910. 



