Manchester Memoirs, Vol. I. ( 1 906), No. 0, 



IX. Observations on a Captive Mole {Talpa europcea). 

 By Lionel E. Adams, B.A. 



Received March 22nd, igo6. Read April lo/h, /god. 



The following extracts from my field note book may 

 be of interest, as they touch upon some of the many mole 

 problems yet unsolved : — 



At noon, on December 15th, 1904, I found a mole on 

 a path in Reigate Park. The little beast was wandering 

 aimlessly about without attempting to burrow. I brought 

 him home in one of my leather gloves — not in my pocket 

 for reasons which previous experience had furnished — 

 and placed him in an empty sugar case with six inches of 

 earth banked up at one end. During the afternoon I 

 noticed him shivering as if with cold, and I provided him 

 with a large handful of hay rolled up to resemble a mole's 

 nest, placing it on the top of the earth in his box. He 

 soon came upon it, went inside and lay perfectly still ; I 

 believe he went to sleep. I fed him with worms at 

 intervals during the evening, and next morning found 

 him active and hearty, hurrying about in search of food. 

 That he had survived the night with only a few worms 

 left was doubtless due to the fact that he was enabled to 

 keep warm in the hay. I do not know whether it has 

 ever occurred to anyone to provide a nest for a captive 

 mole, but this is doubtless necessary to sustain the animal's 

 heat, especially when there is no great depth of soil for 

 burrowing ; and the constant failures to keep a mole alive 

 in captivity are due to the want of this quite as much as 

 to the alleged lack of sufficient food. Now, I kept this 



May ^isf, jgo6. 



