THE MOLES. 



125 



voracity, whatever may happen; neither the pres- 

 ence of man, nor obstacles, nor menaces deter or 

 stop it." In the Diet. Classique d'Hist. Naturelle 

 it is added that " a mole dies of hunger in a very 

 short time, and it is a noteworthy fact that even 

 when its hunger is carried to the highest pitch it 

 never touches vegetable substances that may be 

 lying beside it. On the contrary, let an animal be 

 within its reach, and it will suddenly dart upon it, 

 rip open its belly, and devour it almost entirely 

 in a brief space of time. Toads are almost the 

 only animals which are distasteful to it; frogs and 

 birds it devours with avidity. If two moles of the 

 same sex are inclosed together the weaker is soon 

 devoured, and only the skin and some bones be- 

 longing to it will be left." 



It cannot be too often repeated that the 

 mole lives exclusively on animal food, that it 

 never touches either roots or any other kind 

 of vegetable matter, that it feeds on all sorts 

 of underground vermin (worms and maggots), 

 that it also eats snails and even frogs, which 

 it is very clever in seizing, darting forth from 

 the earth with the rapidity of an arrow, and 

 that it will rather die of hunger than eat any 

 kind of tuber or other juicy root. 



He is thus in consequence of his mode of 

 feeding himself a useful animal, which frees 

 us from all kinds of subterranean vermin, and 

 one does wrong, great wrong, in persecuting 

 him in places where the throwing up of mole- 

 hills can do no harm. No doubt where plan- 

 tations might be damaged the injury that 

 may be wrought by the making of the under- 

 ground passages and the throwing up of the 

 molehills must be placed against the benefits 

 which the mole confers as a destroyer of 

 vermin, but should not lead to his being 

 blindly extirpated. 



Partly in consequence of differences in the 

 dentition, partly in consequence of peculiari- 

 ties in structure, a number of genera in this 

 group have been separated off from the true 

 moles. We have figured as the type of these 

 foreigners a Canadian form, the Star-nosed 

 Mole {Condylura cristata), fig. 55, whose snout 

 ends in a star-shaped plate of cartilage, which 



has the nostrils in the middle. The long tail 

 is thickly covered with hair, the fore-limbs are 

 much longer than in our moles. The denti- 

 tion is also different. The first incisor pre- 

 sents a form which indicates some approach 

 to that of the musk-shrew. This form is still 

 more developed in another mole from the same 

 region {Scalops canadensis), which forms acon- 



Fig. 55- — The Star-nosed Mole {Condylura cristata). 



necting link with the next group through its 

 dentition and its short, compact form of body. 



Group of the Golden Moles {Chrysochlorida). 



Forms belonging to the Cape, with three-toed fore-limbs and 

 fur with rainbow reflex colours. 



These are small animals with short, cylin- 

 drical body, extremely short limbs, and no 

 tail. The structure of the skeleton of the 

 fore-limb stands quite alone in the animal 

 world on account of the peculiar form of the 

 wrist bones. The three toes of the fore-paw 

 carry enormous sickle-shaped claws like those 

 of the ant-eaters. The dentition approaches 

 very close to that of the musk-shrews, and 

 comprises in all 40 teeth. The first incisor 



