Aug. 1910.] The Common Mole. 7 



French writer avers that the common European mole stores 

 earthworms, first biting off their heads so they cannot escape. 

 Such a trifling thing as the loss of a head would not hinder our 

 American earthworms from making their escape tail first. 



WORKING HOURS OF THE DAY. It seems to be a matter of 

 common observation that the mole can be found at work more 

 frequently in the morning and evening than at any other 

 time of day. Some observers also state that there is a third 

 period of activity, between eleven and twelve o'clock, noon. 

 This statement has not been verified by these observations. 



HABITS. 



GENERAL. Like the various species of pocket gophers that 

 inhabit the prairies and plains, the mole lives in the seclusion 

 of underground burrows, coming to the surface only by acci- 

 dent. He does not even permit himself the diversion of an air- 

 ing at the mouth of an open burrow, as does the gopher when 

 he comes out at dawn or twilight with load after load of fresh 

 earth from his excavations. When the mole has occasion to 

 dispose of any surplus dirt he simply pushes it up from be- 

 neath until it forms a loose pile with radiating cracks, unlike 

 the dump formed coal-pit fashion by the pocket gopher. Liv- 

 ing thus in darkness, removed from the sights and sounds that 

 attend the lives of insects, birds and mammals above him, the 

 round of his experiences consists mainly of the smells of fresh 

 moist earth, of plant roots, and of the various worms and 

 grubs he seeks out for food. He feels also the jar of passing 

 feet, the trickle of percolating waters after a shower and the 

 changes in temperature as the seasons come and go. Observa- 

 tions have led us to believe that the mole is not a social animal 

 that the very character of his environment compels him to 

 lead the life of a hermit. This must necessarily be the case 

 with any animal that spends all of its time underground. It is 

 true that on several occasions two or even three moles have 

 been trapped at the same spot, but that need not lead to the in- 

 ference that they had lived together in a social way in that par- 

 ticular burrow. In soil ridged up by a labyrinth of runways 

 frequent intersections of separate burrows must necessarily 

 result. 



THE RUNWAY. After following along the devious course of 

 a mole's path, just beneath the surface of the ground, one will 

 find sooner or later that it begins to run slightly deeper in a 



