MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. Z03 



way?" tabulated in the bulletin referred to, he answers : " By the destruction 

 of earthworms." Mr. Darlington is the only one of forty correspondents who 

 suggests that the earthworm diet of the mole is an injury to crops. Probably 

 a much smaller proportion of the people than one in forty ever considered 

 that phase of the question. We have become accustomed to watching the 

 robins doing yeomen service above ground in this line, and unconsciously 

 have got to thinking that the earthworm was made solely for dietary pur- 

 poses. Darwin, however, has beautifully demonstrated* the hidden economy 

 of the earthworm, and how its value as a converter of decay into food is only 

 exceeded by its agency in tillage and the manufacture of arable soils. 



In the light of this evidence, the fact, now fully recognized by zoologists, 

 that the mole is not a vegetable feeder marks, but one step in our investiga- 

 tions of its economic status. A second step in the right direction is the im- 

 portant discovery that it destroys a large number of insects. But the bur- 

 den of proof, strictly speaking, yet rests upon the admirers of the mole. To 

 these we would put three significant questions: (i) In its widest accepta- 

 tion, is the mechanical action of moles on the soil more beneficial than inju- 

 rious to vegetation? (2) Is the insect food of moles chiefly composed of 

 species classed as injurious by recognized authorities? (3) Is the destruc- 

 tion of earthworms by moles an indirect injury to agriculture or a beneficial 

 check to the excessive increase of the earthworm ? The writer believes that 

 the mole will eventually triumph in this controversy. The mole has been 

 cleared of many accusations of ignorant and short-sighted people, and no 

 doubt can satisfy the anxious inquiries of would-be. friends. We have good 

 reason to predict that our humble and industrious Scalops is unwittingly pur- 

 suing a wise economy in its varied relations to soils, drainage, forestry, agri- 

 culture and animal life, maintaining that wonderful balance of nature which 

 man, above all other creatures, has conspired to disturb." 



Description of species. — This mole is immediately distinguishable from 

 Brewer's mole (with which it is so generally confounded in the higher moun- 

 tainous districts and the lowlands of Pa. west of the Alleghenies) by its tail 

 being only an inch long and apparently destitute of hairs, the skin being a 

 whitish pink, like that of a white pig. In Brewer's mole the tail is ^ inch 

 longer and covered throughout with long, rather stiff, black hairs forming a 

 sort of rounded brush far beyond the end of the tail proper. In size there is 

 no great difference between the species ; in color Brewer's is the darker 

 (brownish slate) animal. From the star-nose mole, which has a disk of 

 radiating fleshy rays on the end of the nose and a long thick, almost naked, 

 black tail, there is no difficulty of separating our common upland Scalops. A 



* " The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms." Charles Darwin. 

 New York, 1882. 



