90 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Genus Scalops Illiger. 



Naked-Tailed Moles. 

 Scalops aquaticus (Linnaeus). 



Common Naked-Tailed Mole. 

 Plate 40, Fig. i. 



Length 6.40 inches. Hands large and naked with powerful 

 claws, hind feet small and of normal shape, snout long and 

 pointed, tail short and naked. Color glossy silvery gray, often 

 tinged with rusty. 



This curious animal spends its entire life in the ground burrow- 

 ing here and there at varying depths in pursuit of the earthworms 

 which constitute its chief article of food. The operations of the 

 mole are much more frequently seen than the animal himself, 

 not only the ridges of raised sod, which mark his tunnelings just 

 beneath the surface, but the piles of loose earth which he forces 

 out from diggings farther under ground. 



The nest or true home of the mole, according to Godman, is 

 a cavity six by three inches, some eight inches from the surface, 

 in hard soil with numerous communicating passages. 



Moles travel with wonderful rapidity along their passageways, 

 and it is no easy matter to capture one whose presence may be de- 

 tected from the moving soil at the surface. He usually backs 

 away and is gone before we have the burrow opened. The 

 tunnels are promptly repaired as often as they are broken in, and 

 traps or pitfalls constructed in them are carefully covered with 

 earth or a new tunnel dug around them. Mr. Harry 'Wilson* and 

 Mr. S. N. Rhoads** have discussed the economic value of moles. 



The outcome of their investigations seem to be ( i ) that the 

 mole's food is wholly animal matter, mainly earth worms, the re- 

 mainder being largely composed of injurious insects. (2") that 

 the mole constructs numerous runways very often undermining 



* Bull. 31 Penna Dept. Agriculture, 1898. 

 ** Forest and Stream, March 5, 1898. 



