350 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



large, broad and armed with straight, stout nails; hind feet relatively small 

 and weak, with slender claws; teeth 44 in total number; eyes minute and 

 hidden in the fur; ears a mere auditory opening under the fur; fur dense 

 and velvety without guard hairs; color of fur at surface dark plumbeous 

 purple or almost black, with a metallic luster when smoothed down, paler 

 and plumbeous at base. 



Measurements. Average of 7 adult males from Humboldt County, Calif. : 

 Total length, 224 mm ; tail, 41 ; hind foot, 26-27. Adult male from Fort Van- 

 couver, Wash. : 202 ; 41 ; 27 ; weight 5% ounces. Adult female from Fort Van- 

 couver, Wash. : 215 ; 42 ; 26 ; weight 4% ounces. 



Distribution and habitat. Extreme northwestern California, 

 Oregon, and Washington west of the Cascades, mainly in the low 

 country and open valleys (fig. 81). 



General habits. These beautiful big furry moles are abundant 

 in most of the open rich valley country of western Oregon, where 

 their presence is easily recognized by the ridged runways and large 



black mounds of earth. 

 Occasionally their ridges 

 and mounds are found in 

 the more open woods but 

 always are more abun- 

 dant and conspicuous 

 in meadows, fields, and 

 lawns. The animals are 

 rarely seen except by some 

 prying naturalist, as they 

 spend most of their lives 

 below the surface of the 

 ground. Unlike the east- 

 ern moles, however, their 

 minute eyes can be opened 



FIGURE 81. Range of three forms of moles in Ore- an d seem to be functional, 

 gon : 1, Scapanus t.ownsendii; 2, S. laUmanus dila- -, . , . . -, 



tus; 3, s. i. aipinus. Type localities circled. and there is some evidence 



that the moles occasionally 



come out upon the surface of the ground at night. Occasionally 

 one is seen when a board is suddenly lifted from the ground, or a 

 log rolled over ? but most of their active lives they spend under- 

 ground, extending long tunnels just below the surface in search of 

 insect food, or digging deeper burrows a foot or two below the 

 surface, and from these burrows pushing out the loose earth in the 

 little rough mounds so familiar to all. These mounds vary from 

 6 inches to 2 feet in diameter, and 4 inches to a foot in height, and 

 are easily distinguished from those of the pocket gopher by the 

 absence of any trace of a closed doorway. 



The mole does not appear at the surface even while pushing up the 

 earth but remains safely hidden below, and when through with one 

 mound leaves the terminal part of the burrow closed as it goes on to 

 extend the tunnel and throw out the next mound of refuse at a dis- 

 tance of 2 to 6 feet from the last. Often these mounds extend in an 

 irregular line of 10 or 20 rods across a field, but more generally they 

 wind about and crisscross each other until sometimes the surface of 

 the ground is half covered with the black earth recently brought up 

 from below. 



Theo. H. Scheffer, who has made a close study of these animals 

 and their habits, says that much of the real life of the moles is lived 



