AN OCTOBER DIARY. 277 



ing them. Were it not for the destruction to meadow 

 pastures caused by star-nosed moles, they would be about 

 the most inoffensive of our mammals. As it is, they 

 often cause a deal of mischief, which is usually attrib- 

 uted to muskrats. During the spring freshets the 

 waters fill the mole's burrowings and loosen up the soil, 

 so that when they have wholly subsided the ground 

 settles, yields unduly to the tread of the cattle, and the 

 sod cracks. A rain ensuing enlarges every crack to a 

 gully and a little land-slide then follows. It takes but 

 few such seemingly trivial occurrences to ruin an acre 

 of pasture-land. 



The winter habits of the star-nosed mole merit con- 

 siderable attention, the more so in that my inferences 

 have been challenged as very incorrect. After a trivial 

 matter of some twenty years' familiarity with these ani- 

 mals, I have ventured to state that they dwell in com- 

 plicated burrows, and at some point in their tangled 

 tunnellings these moles make commodious nests, formed 

 of a good deal of fine grass. Here, indifferent to freshets, 

 they remain all winter, and, as they can lay up no food, 

 sleep, I suppose, through the entire season. The fact 

 that they are unaffected by being submerged during the 

 spring freshets is an interesting one. So far as I have 

 examined their nests, there was nothing to show that 

 they were water-tiglit, and I think that the animals must 

 have been thoroughly soaked for from forty-eight to 

 seventy-two hours, the ordinary duration of the high- 

 water. If through any cause the period of submergence 

 was prolonged, it is probable that it would prove fatal 

 to the moles. 



