The Mole Carnivorous. 169 
by the facts stated by M. Flourens, that this animal is carnivorous, 
and not herbivorous, contrary to what I had ever before supposed. 
The multitudes of them in our gardens, in which we find so many 
potatoes, beets, carrots, parsnips, and other root vegetables eaten be- 
low the surface of the ground, in or near their arched lanes, confirm- 
ed me in the belief that they were the trespassers. This opinion 
prevails, as I understand, throughout our country. 
In reading the statement of facts made by M. Flourens, I found 
myself under the necessity of doubting whether the moles with 
which his experiments were tried, might not be of a different species 
and of different habits from those of our country. ‘This led me to a 
determination to try the experiment as soon as I could obtain a sub- 
ject. In this, however, I did not succeed until the 13th inst., when 
at evening I procured a full grown, healthy and vigorous mole of the 
species commonly called the garden mole. 
I confined him in a wooden box about two feet square, placing on 
the bottom six or eight inches depth of earth, and before him a po- 
tatoe, a beet, a carrot, a parsnip, turnip, and an apple. 
Early next morning I found him exceedingly languid, and appa- 
rently exhausted, barely able to turn himself over when placed on 
his back. All the vegetables.remained whole—none of them having 
been bitten. I then ‘presented him the head and whole neck of a 
fowl, with the feathers on; he instantly seized it, and fed upon it 
with great avidity. I found him the next morning, plump, strong 
and active—nothing left of the head and neck of the fowl, except 
the beak, part of the skull, and bones of the neck, the latter being 
gnawed and stripped of all the flesh. I then left with him a whole 
chicken about the size of a quail. The next day, I found upon ex- 
amination, nothing left of the chicken, with the exception of the beak, 
wing feathers, and a few of the larger bones. I then treated him to 
the head, neck and entrails of another fowl. He first devoured the en- 
trails, and after that, the head and neck, with the exceptions as stated 
in the first instance. Satisfied with this course, I changed his regi- 
men on the evening of the 17th, from flesh to cheese, with the ad- 
the nature of its food was then known. Concerning the state of the animal during 
Winter, Godman’s aceount,* which is the best we are acquainted with, is silent. 
The Encyclopedia Americana, art. Shrew mole, states that in winter “ he burrows 
near streams where the ground i is not so deeply frozen.” We know of no farther 
erence on the —— sp anumaaientel. ) 
bles of a Naturalist. 
Am. Nat. Hist. V 
Vol. XXVIII Ne. L. 
