32 TALPID^— TALPA 



and the excavations of a mole beneath her caused a woodcock 

 to forsake a clutch of eggs which came under Mr Evans's 

 observation, although they were only moved slightly. 



In spite of the obviously worm-eating character of the 

 animal, many writers, amongst them le Court himself, have 

 stated that vegetable substances may form no inconsiderable 

 part of its diet. The roots of the artichoke, together with 

 turnips, potatoes, carrots, and the young fibres of trees, have 

 all been mentioned in this connection. Such statements, however, 

 have always been received guardedly, if not incredulously, by 

 naturalists, who have pointed to the extreme gluttony and raging 

 frenzy of a hungry mole as exhibiting none of the characters of 

 a vegetarian or even of a mixed feeder, and have concluded that 

 the vegetable matter discovered in its stomach must have found 

 its way there accidentally during its digging operations. 

 However that may be, the suggestion that it may be partly 

 herbivorous, although improbable, is not absolutely untenable, 

 since we know that other insectivores are certainly in part 

 vegetable feeders.^ 



Like shrews, adult moles are very impatient of starvation, 

 and die very soon if left without food. Mr Adams states that 

 on one occasion he caught one, vigorous and quite unhurt, and 

 fed him at intervals during the day with about a third of a pint 

 of worms. Having placed a similar quantity in his den (a 

 packing-case with earth at the bottom), he left him for the 

 night. "In the morning I found him very feeble, thin and 

 cold. I took him up in my hand and put his nose to some 

 water, which he seemed to enjoy, but he was too feeble to 

 tackle a worm, and presently, after a gentle convulsion, he 

 died in my hand. I found on dissecting him that the stomach 

 was absolutely empty, in spite of the fact that he had eaten 



^ This is stated to be true- of the Japanese Mole-Shrew {Urotrichus talpoides of 

 Temminck ; see Oldfield Thomas, Proc. Zool. Soc. (London), 28th November 1905, 

 341-342), and of the American short-tailed shrews of the genus Blarina (see C. 

 Hart Merriam, Vertebrates of the Adirondack Region, ii., 71, 1884 ; also E. Thompson 

 Seton, ii,, 11 26, etc.); the latter will eat beech-mast, oats, and corn meal. North 

 American agriculturists have recently become alive to the fact that the animal which 

 does duty with them for the European Mole {Scalops aquaticus) may sometimes 

 consume such quantities of corn as to cause considerable damage to farmers. 

 (See R. L., Field, nth February 191 1, 281, where references to some American 

 publications are given, but I have been unable to find the originals.) 



