INSECT-EATING MAMMALS 63 



are able to move about on their own account, and are then 

 three-quarters grown. They are able to breed at the age of ten 

 or eleven months. It is now made quite certain from the in- 

 vestigations of Mr. Lionel E. Adams that the mole only breeds 

 once in the twelve months. The same writer and other recent 

 authorities have shown that the former supposition regarding 

 the great excess of males over females is also incorrect, and is due 

 to the anatomical peculiarities referred to in connection with the 

 genital organs. Males and females are about equal in numbers. 

 The males are not exactly polygamous, but a male mole during 

 the breeding season will pay attentions to as many females as will 

 permit of his approaches, and one female mole will often be 

 surrounded by a number of males, who may engage in fierce 

 fights to secure her. When the female is nearing the end of her 

 pregnancy she retires from the males' society, and makes a 

 separate fortress and nest in which to bring forth her young. 



The mole is described as being extremely voracious. This 

 is perhaps because it is unable when adult to go for any 

 period more than a few hours without food ; in fact, it easily 

 dies of starvation. Besides worms, which form its principal 

 diet, and the pursuit of which through the soil has done so much 

 through ages to shape the mole into what it is now, this creature 

 eats almost any insect it can capture, and consumes no end of grubs 

 and larvae. It also eats slugs and snails, frogs, lizards, small birds, 

 or the young of its own kind. Specimens in captivity have been 

 known to consume and apparently to digest in the course of 

 twenty-four hours a mass of food equalling their own bodies in 

 weight. The mole is also a very thirsty animal, and its fortresses 

 are never placed very far from water. On the other hand, the 

 mole itself falls a victim, not only to the indignant gardener or 

 the callous gamekeeper,^ but to weasels, stoats, foxes, badgers, 

 owls, buzzards, and herons. Hedgehogs are quite willing to eat 

 them, but cannot do so as a rule, because their weak claws and 

 incisor teeth are not sufficiently sharp to tear open the tough skin 



1 Who accuses it of robbing the nests of pheasants and partridges and 

 eating their eggs. 



