Aug. 1910.] The Common Mole. 23 



forms that are injurious to agriculture. On the other hand, 

 perhaps the bulk of the beetles were of those ground types that 

 are predacious in habit and therefore may be considered either 

 neutral or beneficial. It would be a tedious if not impossible 

 undertaking to attempt to so classify these beetles as to deter- 

 mine the economic status of each individual or lot. In the vast 

 majority of cases the fragmental character of the remains no 

 more than served to distinguish the order. The spiders, centi- 

 pedes and ants listed in the table may, as far as present knowl- 

 edge goes, be reckoned as neutral or beneficial in their relation 

 to agricultural interests. 



The proportionately large amount of food consumed by a 

 mole in a given time serves also to raise him in the rank of im- 

 portance as a destroyer of noxious insects and their larvae. A 

 mole's appetite seems to be insatiable. Experiments with cap- 

 tives show that they will usually eat voraciously as long as they 

 are supplied with food to their liking, often consuming more 

 than their own weight in a day. This is not gluttony, as it 

 is sometimes characterized. The tremendous amount of energy 

 expended in plowing through the resistant soil requires a cor- 

 respondingly large amou t of food to supply that energy. That 

 they must have this food at frequent intervals also is shown 

 by the fact that a mole in captivity usually starves in a few 

 hours unless supplied with nourishment. 



The mole is one of nature's forces to be reckoned with by the 

 agriculturist as he would reckon with nitrogen-forming bac- 

 teria, the birds that visit his fields and the bees that pollinate 

 his fruit blossoms. If the individual mole is not out of place, 

 mark him down as an asset and proceed accordingly. If he is 

 where we do not want him, we are privileged to set swift death 

 on his track in the form of traps, poison or club. For this 

 reason that a mole's presence in lawns, small garden plots, 

 parks and cemeteries becomes intolerable a line of experi- 

 ments was undertaken to determine the better methods of get- 

 ting rid of him in such situations. The results of these experi- 

 ments follow. 



COMBATING THE MOLE. 



The mole seems to possess a natural shrewdness and ability 

 to sense danger out of accord with the life of seclusion which 

 it leads. The common rat, from long association with man and 

 hereditary knowledge of poisons and traps, has become pro- 



