126 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 



shape of Bathyergus and Georychi/s, there are only five or six 

 genera in all. Why should not Talpa be looked upon as the 

 plagiarist ? There is still another very different animal, with 

 mole-like habits, the little armadillo {Chlamyphorus) of the 

 Argentine Republic. It seems remarkable that no Marsupial 

 in Australia has become modified to suit mole-like habits. All 

 other Mammalian habits almost have been adopted by Mar- 

 supials. Bathyergus has, like our Talpa, a bare snout, and 

 strong digging hands and feet. It burrows of course in search 

 of roots and vegetable food only, not for worms like Talpa. 



The people about Simons Town have an idea that the animals 

 work the earth at certain stated hours, and have regular periods 

 of rest ; but I was always able, by going over a good deal of 

 ground, to find one working at any time of the day. The heaps 

 thrown up are huge, a foot high, five or six times as big as 

 those of our little mole. A fresh heap is betrayed at once by 

 its darker colour, i.e., its dampness ; in a few hours the dry 

 heat of the Cape reduces it to a glistening white. 



One has not long to watch, standing a few yards off, before 

 the fresh heap is seen to heave up, three or four times in suc- 

 cession, as the mole forces freshly scooped-out earth up into it 

 from below. I tried at first shooting into the heap as it was 

 thus heaving, in the hopes of getting the mole, but never with 

 any success. In order to shoot the worker, the earth should be 

 quickly thrown back from the fresh heap, and the hole laid 

 open to the air. 



One then has only to retire about ten paces and wait pa- 

 tiently. The mole does not like the fresh air, and in the course 

 of five minutes or so comes back to fill up the hole, but usually 

 puts its head out for a moment first, to find out what's up, 

 though it certainly cannot see far with its minute eyes, which 

 are not bigger than the heads of carpet pins, the whole eye- 

 ball when extracted being not bigger than a tenth of an inch 

 in diameter. 



Of course, a charge of shot at the moment the animal shows 

 its head is effective. But the easiest method of getting speci- 

 mens is to scrap away the earth from the fresh mound and to 

 insert in the hole a common rabbit gin, well secured with peg 

 and string. I trapped a good many Bathyergi in this way, and 

 one Georychus. Bathyergiis is very fierce when dragged out 

 of its hole, fast by one leg in a gin. The animal bites the air 

 savagely with its enormous teeth, which project an inch and a 

 half from the lower jaw, and makes an angry half-snarling, half- 

 grunting noise. 



I took several of the moles on board the ship alive in a sack. 

 I let the sack swing by accident against one of my legs, and 



