142 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



One afternoon on a ■cloudy, rainy day, also in the month of 

 October, I found a common mole among some stones near Silver 

 Lake, and stood still to watch it. It moved stones a foot square 

 that weighed five or six pounds as it burrowed beneath them, and 

 they were uplifted with considerable violence. In making its 

 burrow it dug at first to one side and then to the other. 



Thoreau mentions a star-nosed mole which he carried to a 

 plowed field " where he buried himself in a minute or two." He 

 says also " I see deep indentations in his fur, where his eyes are 

 situated, and once I saw distinctly his eye open, a dull, blue (?) 

 black bead, not very small, and he very plainly noticed my move- 

 ments two feet off. He was using his eyes as plainly as any 

 creature that I ever saw. Yet it is said to be a question whether 

 their eyes are not merely rudimentary." Nevertheless, in a 

 common mole which I found dead the eyes appeared as two small 

 black specks that did not come through the skin. The hair was 

 carefully pulled out about these eye spots, so that they could be 

 examined. Neither this specimen nor another that I subse- 

 quently found dead, also on the surface of the ground, showed 

 any signs of having been injured. 



It was nearly twelve o'clock on the 6th day of April, 1889, 

 when I came to a little clearing and garden spot in the woods 

 near " Sandy Ground " at Pleasant Plains. I observed a curious 

 red-striped object in the garden, and drawing nearer discovered 

 it to be a woman sitting motionless on the ground with a hoe 

 raised above her shoulders as if about to strike. She was dressed 

 in a combination garment of hood and cloak, made all in one 

 piece, and had dark eyes and features as if related to some of 

 the old time Indians who are known to have last lived on this 

 sandy part of our island. She explained with much animation, 

 that a mole always came to the surface just at noon, and as it 

 was nearly noon, she was waiting to cut in two with the hoe, as 

 soon as he appeared, the mole that had dug up her early peas. 

 There are many fortunate delays in this world, and the one for 

 that mole, was that which prevented him from keeping his tradi- 

 tional appointment, just at noon, on that bright April day. 



