THE MOLE AT SOME. 10? 



primitive peculiarities of the whole class of mammals. 

 They have all small brains, and very little developed 

 limbs or organs. They are the least specialized of all 

 quadrupeds, the kinds which have diverged the least 

 from the first ancestral rough sketch of the mammalian 

 type. Compared with a horse, a deer, an elephant, or a 

 cat, one feels at once that moles, hedgehogs, and shrews 

 are very simple and undeveloped forms. Even exter- 

 nally they have not the formed limbs and highly modi- 

 fied weapons or extremities of these higher animals ; in- 

 stead of a solid hoof they have five rude simple claws ; 

 instead of powerful tearing teeth they have a weak and 

 primitive dentition ; while of course they have no such 

 peculiar appendages as horns, antlers, tusks, a trunk, an 

 opposable thumb, or a prehensile tail. 



This simplicity and central character in their outer 

 shape is answered by an equal simplicity in anatomical 

 characters. They are, in fact, a few skulking represen- 

 tatives of a very early type, which do not come into 

 competition with the higher and later forms because of 

 their nocturnal or underground habits, and so survive 

 comparatively unchanged ; while all the better places in 

 the hierarchy of nature are filled by more advanced and 

 specially adapted creatures. 



On the other hand, if you look closely at this mole, 

 you will see that while in general type it has varied but 

 little from the primitive mammalian ancestor, it has yet 

 undergone modification in many small points of some 

 importance, so as closely to adapt it to its existing mode 

 of life. The insectivores, qua insectivore, are intensely 

 primitive, but each one of them, qua mole, or water- 

 shrew, or hedgehog, is a very specialized kind of insec- 

 tivore indeed. This mole here, for example, has a pair 

 of naked, flat, and powerful forepaws, turned curiously 



