196 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
and the thumb is braced by an extra wrist- 
bone, and armed with a horny outgrowth of 
skin with a knife-like edge. The accompany- 
ing muscles are enormous. As the creature 
goes through the soil he stretches these instru- 
ments ahead of his nose, drives the claws into 
the soil, then sweeps them.outward, and so 
progresses by a swimming motion, kicking the 
loose soil behind him, and now and then throw- 
ing it out upon the surface in a ‘‘mole-hill.”’ 
The ‘strength required for this is prodigious, 
as may be tested when a mole is placed among 
movable objects. Godman describes one which, 
after a fall from-a mantel-piece, hurried to the 
wall and then began to travel around the room. 
‘“Whenever,’’ he says, ‘‘its course was impeded by 
the feet’ of the chairs, which were of large size, it 
would not go around them, but wedging itself be- 
tween them and the wall, pushed them with apparent 
ease far enough to obtain a free passage, and it thus 
continued to move several in succession. What was 
more astonishing, it passed in a similar manner be- 
hind the legs of a small mahogany breakfast table, 
and pushed it aside in the same way it had done the 
chairs, finally hiding itself behind a pile of quarto 
volumes, more than two feet high, which it also moved 
out from the wall.’’ 
