INSECTIVORA IQI 



a proportionate amount of work in the same time, he would have to dig a 

 hole about 47.9 miles long and large enough in diameter to admit his body 

 freely. The fossorial habit of the mole demands a great expenditure of physi- 

 cal effort in the pursuit of food. Ordinarily the animal has to remove earth 

 equal to several times its own body weight for each morsel. 5 



When it becomes necessary to get rid of moles or to thin them out, 

 poisoning is not very practicable and trapping must be resorted to, for 

 which purpose special mole traps have been designed and are on the 

 market. 6 



Hisaw, 7 citing West, Dyche and Scheffer, has reported on the food 

 habits of several subspecies of the common American mole (Scalopus 

 aquaticus), as follows: 34 stomachs earthworms, 31 per cent; adult 

 insects, 23 per cent; insect larvae, 29 per cent; vegetable matter, 13 

 per cent (citing West, 1910, but a paper by West, cited in the footnote 

 herewith, says 56 stomachs insects and larvae, 62 per cent; earth- 

 worms, 26 per cent; spiders, myriapods, etc., i per cent; corn, 8 per 

 cent; other vegetable matter, 3 per cent) ; 67 stomachs, 17 empty in 

 remaining 50, earthworms, 42.2 per cent; ground beetles, 22.7 per cent; 

 grubs and larvae, 27 per cent; vegetable matter, 3.7 per cent (citing 

 Dyche) ; 200 stomachs one contained 171 white grubs; one contained 

 250 ant puparia ; 10 cutworms in one ; 12 earthworms in one ; seeds and 

 grain in a few ; earthworms and white grubs their principal food ; in the 

 Northwest chiefly earth worms (citing Scheffer). In Hisaw's own ex- 

 periments, 6 moles daily ate 32.08 per cent of their own weight in food 

 for from 28 to 36 days; one, after being deprived of food for twelve 

 hours, ate 66.6 per cent of its own weight in food. One might be excused 

 for supposing, from these figures, that a i6o-pound man, in order to 

 equal the mole in feeding capacity, would have to eat 51.32 pounds of 

 food a day, as Hisaw figures it, but it must be remembered that most of 

 the food eaten by men is more concentrated than that of moles, hence 

 the man would require proportionately less of it in weight. 



In 100 stomachs of the star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata Linn) 

 taken throughout the year, 2.2 per cent of the food consisted of verte- 



5 Hisaw, Feeding habits of moles, Journ. Mammalogy, TV, 9-20, 1923. 



8 Scheffer, American moles as agricultural pests and as fur producers, Farmers' 

 Bull., No. 1247, pp. 17-19, 1922. 



7 Hisaw, Feeding habits of moles, Journ. Mammalogy, iv, 9-20, 1923. West, A 

 study of the food of moles in Illinois, Bull. Illinois Lab. Nat. Hist., ix, 14-22, 1910. 

 Dyche, Food habits of the common garden mole, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., xvni, 

 183-186, 1903. Scheffer, Farmers' Bull., No. 147, 1922, superceding Bulls. No. 583 

 and 833. Wilson, The economic status of the mole (Scalops and Condylura), Penn- 

 sylvania Dept. Agric. Bull. No. 30, 1898. 



