TKAPPIXG MOLES AND UTILIZING THEIR SKINS. 



5 



been recognized by a number of the more important fur dealers 

 a demand for ^Vmerican moleskins at prices remunerative to the 

 trapper has developed. Bulk orders for immediate delivery, however, 

 coidd not be filled, inasmuch as it has not been generally known that 

 moleskins had or were to have a market value. 



WHERE TO TRAP. 



The mole is not adept at concealing evidences of its presence in 

 lawns, gardens, or fields. Telltale ridges or conspicuous mounds of 

 earth plainly indicate the runways. The ridges (fig. 2) show the 

 direction and course ol the animal's hunting paths, which are so 

 close to the surface that the sod or the soil crust is upraised. The 

 mounds (fig. 3) indicate deeper tunnehng: lor they are formed of 

 earth pushed up from lower workings, where the soil is too compact 

 to be simply crowded aside. Such mounds thickly dot the mole- 

 infested areas of the Pacific coast country (fig. 4), Imt are of much 

 rarer occurrence in the habitat of the eastern mole. The mounds of 

 the Tomisend and other moles of the Northwest reseml)le super- 

 ficially the earth heaps throwai up by pocket gophers, but they can 

 he distinguished from the latter by casual inspection. The mole 



B673M 



Fig. 3. — Mounds made by the mole of the Northwestern States, These resemble superficially heaps thrown 

 up by pocket gophers, but they are more sjonmetrical and are built up, volcano fashion, by successive 

 upheavals from beneath and through the center of the pile. Soil in compact little masses rolls down the 

 sides from the summit. 



