A EEVISION^ OF THE AMERICAN MOLES. By J^'rederick W. True, Curutur, Department of Mammals. The existence of moles in Kortli America was known to naturalists nt least as early as the middle of the eighteenth century. Under date of October 11', 1748, Kalm meutions seeing burrows of a mole on the banks of the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. He remarks on the char-acteristics of an individual kept in captivity, but it is not clear from his account at what time it came under his observation, though pr<)l)ablv not long after the date cited above.^ The first explicit mention of specimens which I find is tliat of Bar-rington in the Philosophical Transactions in 177l'.-Barrington wrote to the secretary of the Royal Societv of London under date of May 15, 1771, as follows : " ' I send herewith a mole from Korth America, which Mr. Kuckahn (who hath before preseute.l several birds and insects to the Society) desires they will do him the honour to place in their Museum. From the descrii)tion which follows, it appears probable tliat the specimen (which included part of the skull) was our common mole Sccdops aquatic us. ' There is a reference to specimens of almost the same date in Bod-dairt's translation of Linnanis's Systema Natune in 1772.^ In a footnote under the heading of 8ore.t-crista fu.s, he remarks : This very rare species makes a connection between the mole and shrew It is more like a mole than a shrew. I have seen the same in the celebrated cabinet of Mr. ^ an der Meulen in Amsterdam. Liiiuitus may have found specimens of American moles in the Swedish museums to which he had access, though it is improbable; if uot, he must have received correct descriptions or specimens froai Kalm, who traveled in America for him and was in correspondence with him. Linna'us diagnoses the species correctly, which he could 'Kalm's Travels, Forster's English Trans., I, 1770, p. 190. Th7species^wa7p^^-bly Scalops aquaticus, but Forster believed that it was Cond>/lum. -Account of a Mole from North America: In a letter to Dr. Maty, Sec. R. S., from the Hon. Daines Barrington, F. K. S., Phil. Trans., LXI, pt. 1, p. 292. "Boddaert, Linn. Nat., 1, 1772, p. .51. Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XIX— No. 1101. Proc. N. M. vol, xix 1
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