THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
said about the marsupial “mole” discovered in 1891. It lives 
in an arid part of southern Australia, is a burrowing creature, 
has a silky coat, pale golden red, and in many 
ways is a most striking counterpart of the South 
African ‘‘golden mole,’ which is no more a true mole than 
is this, but is an insectivore. Interest in the close similarity 
between them, internal as well as outward, deepens when it 
“ Mole.” 
rf 
AUSTRALIAN MARSUPIAL MOLE, 
is added that the Tertiary rocks of Argentina contain a fossil 
insectivore (Necrolestes) closely allied to the Cape species. 
The marsupial mole is not only blind, but its eyes have been 
more completely lost by degeneration than in any other known 
case; and its anatomy abounds in curious adaptations to an 
underground existence evidently antique. 
The true bandicoots are animals like bush rats, from nine to 
sixteen inches long, plus a tapering tail, which inhabit wooded 
Bandi- places, some on the high, dry, interior mountains, 
cots: and other species in the southern swamps. Some 
are handsome; but in outlines and colors they vary greatly. 
All make a compact nest of grass, etc., looking like a mere 
heap of rubbish in a hollow of the ground, in which a family 
hides until the coming of dusk arouses it from its dozing and 
sends it forth to feed. In this, and in their nocturnal digging 
of bulbs to add to their diet of leaves, fruit, mice, insects, worms, 
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