I3O ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



account for the phenomenon. We may add that bats do not harbor 

 bedbugs, as they are popularly supposed to do. 



While the bats are busy ridding the air of insects, most species of 

 moles and shrews are battling the insects that swarm upon and beneath 

 the ground. They get a great many ants, wireworms, cutworms, white 

 grubs and other destructive insects, thus doing much more good than 

 harm. 4 The short-tailed shrew is one of the principal enemies of the 

 larch sawfly in New Brunswick, destroying 40 per cent of the cocoons. 5 

 One captive shrew ate from four to seven large meal worms a day. 6 

 The hedgehog of Europe, related to the shrews and moles, eats many 

 insects, but also takes other invertebrates and vertebrates. 7 



A captive mole in ten hours ate 7 cutworms and 48 earthworms. 8 

 Another captive in twenty-four hours devoured 50 large white grubs, 

 45 rosebug larvae, i cicada^ i ''chestnut worm," i wireworm and 13 

 earthworms. 9 However, it should be remembered that experiments upon 

 animals in captivity are not at all conclusive as to habits under natural 

 conditions. Moles are known to destroy both eggs and nests of wasps. 10 

 Of the food of 56 moles, 62 per cent was insects. 11 The principal food 

 in 200 stomachs of the common mole was earthworms and white grubs, 

 one containing 171 white grubs and another 250 ant pupae. 12 In 34 

 stomachs, 23 per cent of the contents was adult insects and 29 per 

 cent insect larvae. 13 In 67 stomachs, 42.25 per cent of the contents 

 was earthworms, 22.7 per cent ground beetles, 27 per cent grubs and 

 larvae, 3.7 per cent vegetable matter. 14 



The armadillo of the southern United States is a 'Voracious con- 

 sumer of insects, especially white grubs and their adults, caterpillars 

 and ants." 15 The giant armadillo of the Amazon is said to live mainly 

 on ants and termites and the giant anteater of Brazil lives wholly on 

 ants. 16 The African antbear "lives entirely on termites." 17 The spiny 



4 Dunnam, Iowa State Agric. Exper. Sta. Circular No. 88, 1924. Wight, Journ. 

 Mammalogy, ix, 19-33, 1928. Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, pp. 200, 203, 205, 1926. 

 Howell, ibid., No. 45, pp. 20-21, 1921. Klugh, Journ. Mammalogy, n, 35, 1921. 



5 McAtee, Ann. Kept. Smithsonian Inst. for 1925, p. 416. 



6 Dixon, Journ. Mammalogy, v, 1-6, 1924. 



7 Ingersoll, The life of animals, pp. 68-77, 1907. 



8 Howell, Journ. Mammalogy, iv, 253, 1923. 



9 Brooks, Univ. West Virginia Agric. Exper. Sta. Bull. No. 113, 1908. 



10 Brooks, Journ. Mammalogy, iv, 183, 1923. 



11 West, Bull. Illinois State Lab. Nat. Hist., ix, 1910. 



12 Schefrer, Farmers' Bull, No. 1247, 1922. 



13 Hisaw, Journ. Mammalogy, iv, 9-20, 1923. 



14 Dyche, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., xvin, 183-186, 1903. 



15 McAtee, Ann. Kept. Smithsonian Inst. for 1925, p. 416. 



16 Ingersoll, The life of animals, pp. 469, 476-477, 1907. 



17 Drake-Brockman, The mammals of Somaliland, p. 175, 1910. 



