THE COAST RAT, OR SAND MOLE, 607 
Should it be unexpectedly attacked, it assumes an offensive attitude, and trusting to 
its delicate sense of hearing to inform it of the direction in which the foe is approaching, 
bites most savagely with its long chisel-like incisors. While engaged in combat, or while 
threatening its adversary, it utters a sharp crying snort at short intervals. 
The food of the Mole Rat is believed to be entirely of a vegetable nature, and it is in 
search of the various plants on which it feeds that it drives its long and complicated 
tunnels through the soil. It is especially fond of roots, more particularly preferring those 
of a bulbous character, but will also feed on grain and different fruits, and is said to lay 
up a store of provisions in a subterranean chamber connected with its burrow. The usual 
form of the Mole Rat’s habitation and hunting-ground may be easily imagined. A series 
of horizontal tunnels, or main roads, are driven through the ground at no areat depth from 
the surface of the earth, and are connected with a number of chambers excavated at some 
depth, and with an endless variety of shallow passages which are made in the course of 
the animal’s daily peregrinations in search of food. 
The Russian peasants have an idea, that if any one will have the courage to seize a 
Slepez in his bare hands, permit the animal to bite him, and then squeeze it to death 
between his fingers, he will ever afterwards possess the power of curing goitre by the touch 
of his hands. The general colour of the Slepez is a very light brown, slightly tinged with 
red in some parts, and fading into an ashen-grey in others. Its total length is about ten 
or eleven inches, and the tail is wanting. The head is broad, flat on the crown, and 
terminates abruptly at the muzzle. The feet are short, and the claws small. 
This animal is presumed to be the Blind Mole of the ancient Greek authors, and if so, 
affords another of the many instances where the so-called errors of the old writers on 
natural history have proved, on further acquaintance, to be perfectly correct. The specific 
name Typhlus is a Greek word, signifying blind, and has been given to the Slepez on 
account of its absolute deprivation of eyes. 
COAST RAT, OR SAND MOLE.—Rathyerqus Moritimus. 
THE incisor teeth of the Coast Rat, or SAND MoLg, are even larger in proportion 
than those of the preceding animal, and those of the upper jaw are marked by a groove 
running throughout their leneth. The fore-feet are furnished with long and powerful claws, 
that of the second toe being the largest. The eyes are exceedingly small, the external 
ears are wanting, and the tail is extremely short. 
The Coast Rat is an inhabitant of the Cape of Good Hope and the coasts of Southern 
Africa, where it is found in tolerable profusion, and drives such multitudes of shallow 
tunnels that the ground which it frequents is rather dangerous for horsemen, and not at 
all pleasant even to a man on foot. The burrows are made at so short a distance from 
