Mole

a small insect-eating animal related to the shrew. Of North American species, there are six on the Pacific coast and three in the Eastern United States. The smallest is the hairy-tailed mole. The star-nosed mole has a rosette of fleshy processes on the snout. It is fond of moist lands and is not a bad swimmer. The common mole is about six and one-fourth inches long, with a little pinkish bare tail looking like the half of an angle-worm. Except in size, the mole has no point of similarity to a rat. The nose projects half an inch beyond the mouth into a broad, flattened point, almost as hard as a bone. The stout, flat body is covered with fine, soft, gray fur. The fineness and shimmer of the fur give name to the cloth known as moleskin. The legs are short and stout. The hands are three fourths of an inch wide and about an inch long. This length is half claw.

The mole dwells underground entirely. The parent moles excavate commodious chambers in a central location, and push out in every direction an inch or two beneath the surface in search of food. In making its way the mole first of all pushes its nose into the earth like a brad awl. It then thrusts forward first one paw and then the other, along the side of its face, and forces the earth sidewise. The hind legs are used to crowd the body forward into the passage. The mole is one of the most muscular animals known. It is quite capable of pushing its way through the roots of dooryard sward at the rate of 100 feet in twenty-four hours. In loose, plowed ground, it travels several times as fast. Its course may be traced usually by a waving ridge of loosened earth.

The mole lives entirely on insects, not on roots, as commonly supposed. Whatever damage the mole may do in a garden or meadow is unintentional. It should be remembered that it is in search not of roots, but of grubs, cutworms, beetles, and the like. Its teeth are fine and sharp, and are not suited to cut roots or gnaw grain. It has no intention of injuring the roots of vegetables or growing plants. Intelligent gardeners say that the mole does more good than harm in lawn or garden, as it never disturbs anything vegetable, save as the roots of plants are crowded aside a little in the search for insect food. The keepers of parks not infrequently introduce moles for the good they do in ridding the sward and tree roots of injurious insects. The French forbid the killing of a mole on the penalty of five francs.

The ears of the mole are so short as to be entirely concealed beneath the fur. The shrew has a bright little eye, but its larger relative, the mole, has so little use for eyes that they are rudimentary and sometimes closed; whence the expression, "blind as a mole." The young are brought forth, two at a time, in the deep nest mentioned. Here the mole family spends the winter below the reach of frost.

Moles are confined to north temperate latitudes. A similar animal carrying its young in a pouch is found in Australia. There are mole-like animals in Madagascar and a so-called "golden" mole in South Africa. All are insect eaters. A fossil skeleton has been found in Patagonia, but there are no living moles in South America.

See Shrew