Star-nosed Mole 
1 have never found their nests or young, and can not help 
wondering how they manage in times of freshet, when the 
meadows and swamps where they dwell are submerged. 
But the old ones show no fear of the water; | have fre- 
quently seen them swimming both under water and on the 
surface, even where the current was pretty strong, and have 
always observed them to be perfectly confident and unfrightened 
at such times. 
Drought seems to affect them much more severely than 
freshet, and in hot weather, after a few weeks without rain, 
many of them are to be found dead, evidently having perished 
from thirst. The star-nosed mole feeds principally upon worms 
and whatever else of insect life it comes across in its under- 
ground rambles, and judging by the carnivorous tastes of its 
relatives, I have little doubt that it varies this diet with small 
fish and reptiles and their eggs as well as the flesh of warm- 
blooded creatures whenever it is to be obtained. 
If they really hibernate in winter it must be only in an 
interrupted sort of way, for it is not very uncommon for them to 
be out along unfrozen brooks in the coldest weather, and certainly 
either this or the common mole is often moving about just beneath 
deep snow, the peculiar position of the fore paws of the creature 
leaving a track not easily to be confounded with that of any 
other animal. 
The most feasible theory would seem to be that they pass the 
winter deep down in the swamps, below the reach of the frosts, 
where they may carry on their subterranean work at their leisure, 
occasionally entering brooks to. swim about beneath the ice in 
pursuit of water-beetles and the like. 
One, which I caught in the early part of last February, 1901, 
must have been swimming near the middle of the brook not 
far from the bottom, where the water was six or eight inches 
deep; and although it had been in the trap under water for 
several days where I| found it, its fur still kept out the water 
and dried as readily as otter fur, exhibiting the true quality of 
the coat of a swimming animal. 
What is the life of these little earth folk like? They see 
and know little of the things most familiar to us and the other 
creatures that love the sun-warmed air and the sky. 
Most so-called nocturnal creatures are fond of the sun and 
191 
