CONDYLURA CRISTATA. I^I 



Audubon and Bachman observe : " In a few localities where we 

 were in the habit, many years ago, of obtaining the Star-nosed 

 Mole, it was always found on the banks of rich meadows near run- 

 ning streams. The galleries did not run so near the surface as 

 those of the common Shrew Mole. We caused one of the galleries 

 to be dug out, and obtained a nest containing three young, ap- 

 parently a week old. The radiations on the nose were so slightly 

 developed that until we carefully examined them we supposed they 

 were the young of the Common Shrew Mole. The nest was 

 spacious, composed of withered grasses, and situated in a large ex- 

 cavation under a stump. The old ones had made their escape, and 

 we endeavoured to preserve the young; but the want of proper 

 nourishment caused their death in a couple of days." * The only 

 nest that I ever found was about two feet below the surface, in 

 clay soil, and under a stump. It was composed of grass, and from 

 it a passage led to a vegetable garden near by. 



The same authors assert that " it avoids cultivated fields, and 

 confines itself to meadows and low swampy places." f That this 

 is not always the case I have positive proof, for I have caught a 

 number of them in our garden. By following the ridge of loose 

 earth that marks their progress, and quickly sinking a spade 

 directly in their path, a few inches in advance of the moving earth, 

 I have often turned them out upon the surface. They pass through 

 the rich, soft soil of a garden bed with such rapidity that my spade 

 has sometimes cut them in two, though aimed several inches in 

 advance of the moving earth. 



The precise function of the curious disc of tentacle-like papillae 

 on the snout has not as yet been positively determined, though it 

 is highly probable that it serves as a delicate organ of touch to aid 

 the animal in discovering the worms and insects that constitute its 

 prey. 



* Ibid., pp. 141-142. t I^>i'^-. PP- 141-142. 



