202 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



scarcity in arable lands, it is safe to say that a more harmless mammal than 

 the star-nose does not exist. 



An important and generally ignored subject in the economy of the mole is 

 the significant fact that its food consists largely of earthworms. Most investi- 

 gators seem to think that if it can be proved that the mole eats nothing but 

 earthworms and insects, then he is clear of suspicion and an unmixed benefit 

 to agriculture. One of Mr. Wilson's correspondents significantly says that 

 he considers the common mole injurious to growing crops ' by its destruction 

 of earthworms' ! It seems most pertinent that the next question for our 

 agricultural departments along this line of research should be first to decide 

 whether Darwin's views as to the value of earthworms to soils and agriculture 

 are correct. This once decided in the affirmative, it remains for the cham- 

 pions of the mole to prove that its destruction of worms is a necessary check 

 to their excessive increase, and that the mechanical effects of the mole as a 

 worker on soils are of greater value than that of the worms it destroys. 

 Another matter, in which the mole figures largely in hilly districts, where the 

 soils are easily washed by rains, is its agency in the denudation of top soils. 

 In some parts of the Ohio Valley the effect of their tunneling on arable hill- 

 sides is most disastrous." 



The second paper in Forest ai,d Stream from which I make extract was on 

 " Owls, Mice and Moles." The part relating especially to moles in this is as 

 follows : 



" Until lately we have known very little of scientific fact about the diet of 

 our common mole (Scalops aquaticus). Under the direction of the Pennsyl- 

 vania State Board of Agriculture, an expert examination of about forty stom- 

 achs of the common mole shows that only one had intentionally devoured 

 vegetable food, and that all had largely depended on earth-worms, June bugs, 

 click beetles and other " injurious" insects, earth-worms forming the bulk of 

 their diet. There are more than two ways of judging these facts from the 

 standpoint of economic zoology. Mr. Harry Wilson, the gentleman who 

 conducted the inquiry, decides to his own satisfaction that any animal, if 

 proved to be insectiverous, and not herbivorous or granivorous, is beneficial 

 to the farmer. On these grounds he is content to rest his case, acquit the 

 mole of wilful trespass, and commend him to the tender mercies of the hus- 

 bandman. But the market gardener and the florist and the owner of a level 

 lawn exclaim : " Not so ; we will grant that he does not eat our seeds, vege- 

 tables, bulbs and grass roots, but he uproots and undermines them, and makes 

 a thousand passageways in which noxious mice and shrews may forage and 

 destroy." 



One observer, Mr. E. H. Darlington, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, voices 

 the opinion of another and a surprisingly small class. In answer to the ques- 

 tions : "Do you consider the mole injurious to growing crops? In what 



