Arizona republican., 1893-01-17
THE PRECIOUS MOLE.
A Very Small Animal But Great
 Fighter.
It Is Claimed by zooloEists That, Accord ing to Its Size, This Underground Worker Is the Most Savage
 of the Ouadrupeds.

world?" asked Washington Star writer of zoologist.
 ''The mole" he replied "You are surprised, but such, in my opinion, is the fact People ordinarily lool, upon the mole as a sluggish and harmless creature, spending its life in groping blindly underground. As usual the pop ular idea is a mistaken one. The mole is in reality the most ferocious and most active of animals. Imagine it magnifed to the size of tiger and you would have more terrible beast than the world has yet seen. Though with defective powers of vision and there fore incapable of following it's prey by sight, it would be agile beyond concep- tion, springing this way and that as it went along, leaping with lightning quicliness upon any creature which It met, rending it to pieces in a moment. devouring the yet warm and bleeding flesh and instantly seeking, with hun ger unsuitable, for fresh victim. This creature would, without hesitation, de- vour serpent twenty feet in length, and so tremendous would be it's voraCi- ty that it would eat twenty or thirty such snakes in the course of day. With one grasp of its teeth and single clutch of its claws it could disembowcl an OK, and if it should happen to enter a fold of sheep or an inclosure of cattle it would kill them all for the mere lust of slaughter.
 "Let two such animals meet and how terrific would be the battle! Fear is feeling which the mole seems never to entertain. In conflict with an adver- sary of it's own kind it's efforts are ex- clusively directed to injuring it's op- pOncnt, without regard for it's own pro lection. An examination of the sllel- eton of a mole will repay your trouble, so wonderful is it's adaptation of struc- ture to its manner of life. It looks like veritable machine for digging and it has several accessory bones which are not found in any other living beast, being discovered only in certain fossil forms.
 "The mole is gifted with incredible activity. It pursues the earth worms on which it chiefly feeds with an energy that is untiring, and, when it has caught one, it devours the prey like a starving tiger, rcnding it with it's powerful claws and teeth. Occasionally it will capture bird and tear it into frag- ments, devouring eagerly the bleeding flesh. During the latter part of June Mir Mole falls in love, and in his at tachmentS he is as furious as in all other phases Of his nature. At that period he cannot meet another male of his kind without fighting, very often to the death. He constructs bridal chamber for his chosen spouse at the intersection of two of his tunnels, so that there is more than one way of escape for her self and the young ones in case danger threatens This chamber is partly filled with dried grass for couch, and | it is always at some distance from Mir. Mole's dwelling proper
 "The subterlanean dwelling of MT. Mole is wonderful labyrinth. No human being could very well find his way about in it, supposing that its di- mensions were sufficiently magnifed to admit his passage through the maze of tunnels. The latter compose a net work as complicated as that of the sewers of metropolis It must not be ! imagined that the animal burrows at, random. On the contrary, it works on well-defined system, though how it | forms its burrows in such admirably straight lines, always laboring in the blackest darkness, is a mystery.
 "The home of the beast is in a hillock under the shelter of some tree or bank, so as to be inconspicuous. Here is its center of operations, from which regu- | lar roads lead off in different directions to its feeding grounds If you dig into the hillock you discover Q very elab- crate and wonderful structure. The central apartment of the dwelling is nearly spherical chamber, around which run two circular passages, one on a level with the ceiling and the other at some height above. The upper circle