196 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



and the thumb is braced by an extra wrist- 

 bone, and armed with a horny outgrowth of 

 skin with a knife-like edge. The accompany- 

 ing muscles are enormous. As the creature 

 goes through the soil he stretches these instru- 

 ments ahead of his nose, drives the claws into 

 the soil, then sweeps them outward, and so 

 progresses by a swimming motion, kicking the 

 loose soil behind him, and now and then throw- 

 ing it out upon the surface in a "mole-hill." 



The strength required for this is prodigious, 

 as may be tested when a mole is placed among 

 movable objects. Godman describes one which, 

 after a fall from a mantel-piece, hurried to the 

 wall and then began to travel around the room. 



"Whenever," he says, "its course was impeded by 

 the feet of the chairs, which were of large size, it 

 would not go around them, but wedging itself be- 

 tween them and the wall, pushed them with apparent 

 ease far enough to obtain a free passage, and it thus 

 continued to move several in succession. What was 

 more astonishing, it passed in a similar manner be- 

 hind the legs of a small mahogany breakfast table, 

 and pushed it aside in the same way it had done the 

 chairs, finally hiding itself behind a pile of quarto 

 volumes, more than two feet high, which it also moved 

 out from the wall." 



