SKELETON OF THE MOLE. 



195 



similarly disposed, occur in the skeleton of each. The 

 head of the mole is long and cone-shaped; its broad base 

 joins on the trunk without any outward appearance of a 

 neck. The forepart of the trunk, to which the principal 

 muscular masses working the fore-limbs are attached, is 



Fig. 41. 



SKELETON OF THE jrOLE. 



the thickest, and thence the body tapers to the hind- 

 quarters, which are supported by limbs as slender as they 

 are short. 



The neck-bones, nevertheless, are not Vv^anting; they 

 even exist in the same number as in the girafie; the ver- 

 tebral formula of the mole being — 7 cervical, 13 dorsal, 

 6 lumbar, 5 sacral, and 10 caudal. The spine of the 

 second vertebra or dentata is large, and extended back 

 over the third vertebra: the neural arches of this and the 

 succeeding neck-vertebrge form thin simple arches with- 

 out spines: the entire vertebra© have been described as 

 mere rings of bone ; but the transverse processes of the 

 fourth, fifth, and sixth cervicals are produced forwards 

 and backwards, and overlap each other : in the seventh 

 vertebra those processes are reduced to tubercular diapo- 

 physes which are not perforated : the bodies of the verte- 



