178 
ing no nodes or irregularities caused by the vertebre, as the name Con- 
dylura would indicate. Ordinarily, it is about one-fifth of an inch in its 
greatest thickness, but during the breeding season it grows to half an 
inch or more in diameter, owing to the deposition of fat under the 
skin. 
The pelage is of two kinds of hair; a dark plumbeous basal ur, with 
sooty tips, giving the animal a uniformly dark-brown or blackish tinge, 
and coarser hairs, the longest measuring half an inch, thickly inter- 
spersed with the basal hair. The fur is not as fine as in Scalops, and is 
without the lustrous gloss of the Common Mole. | 
The hands have a fringe of hair encircling the entire palm; the whole 
of the under surface and most of the upper is without hairs and closely 
covered with a pavement of plates, of a brownish color, larger near the 
outer margin above, but of nearly uniform size below. Both surfaces of 
the hind feet have a similar coating of plates. 
The hind feet are narrower than the front, but are considerably longer. . 
On. both fore and hind feet the fingers and claws decrease regularly from 
the fourth to the first. The front feet are webbed between the basal 
joints. 
The outer edge of the under surface of each front toe 1s produced, form- 
ing lacinated horny processes; these are not found on the hind feet; 
the exact use of these peculiar processes, as of the nasal fringes so char- 
acteristic of this genus, are not at present known. 
The skull is longer and slenderer than in allied moles; the cranium is 
almost as high as broad; the auditory openings large and conspicuous as 
in the shrews; the posterior edge of the palate has a notch extending te 
the perultimate molar. 
The upper incisors are axelike, and project nearly horizontally; those 
of opposite sides lie near together, forming the two halves of a kind of 
spoon. After these comes a slender, vertical, thread-like incisor, which 
has in immediate contact a long, canine-like incisor, having a small spur 
on its outer back edge; this is followed, after a considerable diastema, by 
a diminutive canine with a single fang, to which succeed\three com- 
pressed molars having double fangs, a large-pointed central lobe, and 
two basal ones. There is no interval between the last premolar and the 
molars; the anterior premolars, the canine, and the third incisor are 
separated from each other. 
In the lower jaw, which is very delicate, the premolars are nearly 
similar to the upper ones in form and position; the canine is large and 
distinct, with posterior basal fang; the three incisors are directed longi- 
tudinally forward, the two inner ones with their fellows of the opposite 
