8 TALPID^— TALPA 



Clyde areas, and in Wales, it has been detected by Service, Boyd Watt, 

 and Forrest at 2000 feet at least in each case, the first observer recording 

 its presence at 2782 feet on the Merrick [Trans. Edinburgh Field 

 Naturalists' and Microscopical Society, vi., i., 64, 1907-8). Boyd Watt 

 has found it at 1200 feet, when the snow- line was 200 feet below. For 

 the Tay area it has been recorded from 1 500 feet (Godfrey in Harvie- 

 Brown), and its workings occur at well over 2000 feet on the Loch Tay 

 hills (Evans in lit). On the other hand, its burrows may be found in 

 the sand-dunes by the sea beach, as at Thurso, Caithness (Kinnear), at 

 North Berwick, Haddington (Evans), and elsewhere ; at Malldraeth and 

 elsewhere in Anglesey it even frequents ground flooded by spring tides 

 (Oldham in MS. ; see also Forrest). 



From the islands it is as a rule absent, but occurs in Jersey (Bunting, 

 Zoologist, 1908, 461) and Alderney (Eagle Clarke) ; is common in Wight 

 (More ; Bury ; Wadham) ; and numerous in Anglesey (Coward). In 

 the Clyde Isles and Inner Hebrides it is known only from Bute, 

 whence Pennant reported it in 1777 (see also W. Evans, Ann. Scott. Nat. 

 Hist., 1905, 241) ; Ulva, off Mull, where it is stated to have first appeared 

 in February 1892 (Harvie-Brown and Buckley); and Mull, where it 

 is numerous and its presence is locally attributed to a legendary 

 introduction in a boatload of earth sent from Morven early in the 

 eighteenth century (Alston). Remains found on Ailsa Craig were 

 probably carried there by predatory birds (Boyd Watt). 



Despite its absence from the Shetlands, Orkneys, Outer Hebrides, 

 Man, and Ireland,^ it is known by a Gaelic name to the inhabitants of 

 the two latter islands. 



Distribution in time : — A species from the Cromer Forest Bed (late 

 Pliocene) hitherto referred to T. europcea, in reality belongs to another 

 and extinct species. The fossil remains which are found in British 

 late Pleistocene deposits, such as the Ightham Fissures in Kent and the 

 Teesdale caves in Yorkshire, represent a form much more closely 

 related to the living T. europcea than the older Forest Bed species. 



The rutting season is normally confined to the end of March, April, 

 and, occasionally, part of May. The period of gestation is about four 

 weeks, or slightly more. The young, averaging between three and four, 

 with extremes of one and seven, are born normally from about the 24th 

 April to the middle of June. Occasionally late litters have been 

 observed in August or September, but there is no evidence that the 

 Mole breeds twice a year (Adams, Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and 

 Philosoph. Soc, xlvii.. No. 4, 23, read i8th Nov. 1902 (1903)). 



1 A bird's ''pellet" picked up in Benevenagh Woods, Bellarena, Co. Londonderry, 

 by R. Welch, was found by Adams to contain the skull of a mole, perhaps brought 

 over by a hawk from Scotland {Irish Naturalist, 1905, 72). 



