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TOWNSEND’S SHREW-MOLE. 
The canine or false molars, six on each side, are nearly the same size, 
and incline forwards ; the three true molars, which succeed, are large, 
nearly uniform in size, and correspond with those in the upper jaw, 
although they are smaller. 
Body, thick and cylindrical, shaped like the Shrew-Mole ( Scalops aquati- 
ons) ■ the limbs are short, being concealed by the skin of the body nearly 
down to the wrist and ankle-joints. 
Palms, naked, very broad, furnished with moderately long nails which 
are channelled beneath ; tail, rather thick, tapering from the root to the 
tip, and nearly naked, being very sparingly clothed with short hairs ; the 
vertebrae are equally four sided ; lingers, very short, united to the roots of 
the nails • nails, slightly curved ; hind-feet, more slender than the fore- 
feet, and distinctly webbed to the nails ; the feet are thinly clothed above, 
with short hairs. The whole of the body, both upper and lower surface, 
presents a velvety appearance. 
COLOUR. 
The body is dark liver brown colour above, changing with the light in 
which it is viewed to silvery or black shades ; the hair when blown aside 
exhibits a grayish-black colour to near the tips, which in some of the points 
are white, others brown black, producing the changeable colours above 
described. One of the specimens which we have seen — the one figured in 
our plate — has a wliitish-yellow stripe about two lines wide, running in a 
somewhat irregular line along the under surface of the body to within an 
inch and a half of the insertion of the tail ; there is also a white streak 
commencing on the forehead, spreading over the snout and around the 
edges of the mouth and lower jaws. The teeth are white ; feet, point ol 
nose, and tail, flesh colour ; nails, light brown. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Inches. Lines. 
Length of head and body, ------ 8 6 
“ tail, 1 6 
Breadth of palm, 7 
HABITS. 
We were informed by Nuttall and Townsend, who mistook this species 
for our common Shrew-Mole ( Scalops aquations ), that they dug and formed 
galleries, and threw up little mounds of earth precisely in the manner ol 
