TOWNSE N’D’S SURE W-MOLE. 
219 
that animal. They are well known to the farmers and settlers in the 
valleys of Oregon, as they traverse their fields and gardens, cutting up the 
ground in some places to an injurious extent. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
This species is found in considerable abundance near the banks of the 
Columbia and other rivers in Oregon, where our specimens were obtained. 
We are unable to say what is the northern limit of this animal. It has 
not yet been found on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, and we 
have not been able to determine positively that it exists in California ; 
but we have little doubt that it is the most common Shrew-Mole on the 
Pacific side of the North American continent, where our common species 
(Scalops aquations ) does not appear to have been discovered. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
Sir John Richardson, who first described this animal from a specimen 
preserved in the museum of the Hon. Hudson’s Bay Company, obtained by 
Mr. David Douglas, does not seem to have made a comparison between 
this Mole and our common Atlantic species. Harlan had described the 
skull of the species which we have since described and figured as Scalops 
Brewerii, having forty-four teeth, and another which had thirty-six. Rich- 
ardson was thus induced to suppose that authors had varied in their 
descriptions of the Scalops from their having mentioned edentate spaces 
between the incisors and grinders, and had consequently described the 
young in those specimens which had only thirty-six teeth. The young, 
however, of our common aquaticus (or as Cuvier has called it, Scalops 
Canadensis) has only thirty teeth, the adult thirty-six, whilst the present 
species has forty-four. 
On our pointing out to Sir John Richardson these particulars, ho 
expressed himself gratified to have an opportunity of correcting the error 
into which he had inadvertently fallen. 
