198 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
sues its prey at a safe depth. It does not hi- 
bernate but is much less active than in summer, 
and doubtless is made so drowsy by the chill 
and the scarcity of air beneath the frozen top- 
soil that it sleeps most of the time. In sum- 
mer these little creatures have a curious habit 
of coming to the surface precisely at noon, 
and peering out, or even taking air and sun- 
shine in a little walk. They are not blind, but 
their eyes are hardly larger than mustard 
seeds, so that vision must be restricted to little 
more than the perception of light. 
A closely related but smaller northeastern 
species is Brewer’s or the hairy-tailed mole; 
and the Pacific coast has Townsend’s and other 
species. 
The mole with the rosette. The star-nosed 
mole is a very interesting one, common in the 
Great Lakes region and on the Atlantic slope. 
It is larger than the garden mole, has a longer 
tail, a blackish-brown coat impervious to water, 
and particularly a rosette of pinkish fleshy 
feelers around the end of its pig-like proboscis. 
It lives by choice in swamps and wet meadows, 
where its burrows often open in some stream- 
