THE COAST RAT OR SAND MOLE. 



607 



Should it be unexpectedly attacked, it assumes an offensive attitude, and trusting to 

 its delicate sense of hearing to inform it of the direction in which the foe is approach- 

 ing, bites most savagely with its long chisel-like incisors. While engaged in combat, 

 or while threatening its adversary, it utters a sharp crying snort at short intervals. 



The food of the Mole Rat is believed to be entirely of a vegetable nature, and it is 

 in search of the various plants on which it feeds that it drives its long and complicated 

 tunnels through the soil. It is especially fond of roots, more particularly preferring 

 those of a bulbous character, but will also feed on grain and different fruits, and is 

 said to lay up a store of provisions in a subterranean chamber connected with its burrow. 

 The usual form of the Mole Rat's habitation and hunting-ground may be easily im- 

 agined. A series of horizontal tunnels, or main roads, are driven through the ground 

 at no great depth from the surface of the earth, and are connected with a number 

 of chambers excavated at some depth, and with an endless variety of shallow passages 

 which are made in the course of the animal's daily peregrinations in search of food. 



The Russian peasants have an idea, that if any one will have the courage to seize a 

 Slepez in his bare hands, permit the animal to bite him, and then squeeze it to death 

 between his fingers, he will ever afterwards possess the power of curing goitre by the 

 touch of his hands. The general color of the Slepez is a very light brown, slightly 

 tinged with red in some parts, and fading into an ashen-gray in others. Its total length 

 is about ten or eleven inches, and the tail is wanting. The head is broad, flat on the 

 crown, and terminates abruptly at the muzzle. The feet are short, and the claws small. 



This animal is presumed to be the Blind Mole of the ancient Greek authors, and if 

 so, affords another of the many instances where the so-called errors of the old writers 

 on natural history have proved, on further acquaintance, to be perfectly correct. The 

 specific name Typhlus is a Greek word, signifying blind, and has been given to the 

 Slepez on account of its absolute deprivation of external eyes. 



COAST RAT, OR SAND MOLE. Bathyergus Maritlmus. 



THE incisor teeth of the COAST RAT, or SAND MOLE are even larger in proportion 

 than those of the preceding animal, and those of the upper jaw are marked by a groove 

 running throughout their length. The fore-feet are furnished with long and powerful 

 claws, that of the second toe being the largest. The eyes are exceedingly small, the 

 external ears are wanting, and the tail is extremely short. 



The Coast Rat is an inhabitant of the Cape of Good Hope and the coasts of South- 

 ern Africa, where it is found in tolerable profusion, and drives such multitudes of 

 shallow tunnels that the ground which it frequents is rather dangerous for horsemen, 

 and not at all pleasant even to a man on foot. The burrows are made at so short a 



