[64.] 4 ? G e ó m y s ? t a l p o i d e s . (Richardson.)
Mole-shaped, Sand-Rat.
Cricetus ? talpoides. Richardson, Zool. Joum., No. 12, p. 518.
Ootaw-chee-gceshees. Cr.ee I ndians ?
G. 9 (talpoides), super suhterque cinerascenti-niger, caudaque brevi albis, pedibus posticis sub-tetradactylis.
Mole-shaped Sand-rat ? of a grayish-black colour, with white chin, throat, and tail, and only four.perfect toes on the
hind-feet*
The specimen described in this article was presented to the Zoological Society
by Mr. Leadbeater, who obtained it from Hudson’s Bay, but it was not accompanied
by any notice of its precise habitat or a description of its manners. I am
inclined to identify it with a small animal inhabiting the banks of the Saskatchewan,
which I know only from the accounts of the residents and the mounds it throws
up in the form of mole-hills, but generally rather larger. It lives entirely under
ground, and during the winter it must either sleep or confine itself to its old paths,
as the soil is then too much frozen to permit it to make new roads. As soon as
the snow disappears in the spring, and whilst the ground is as yet only partially
thawed, little heaps of earth newly thrown up attest the activity of this animal. I
could not, however, procure a specimen, the soil being, at the period I was residing
on the banks of the Saskatchewan, still too much frozen to permit me to reach the
animal by digging. The earth thrown up then I suppose to have been merely
the clearings of the galleries which it had made during the preceding year. It
inhabits only sandy banks, and its food probably consists principally of roots.
It cannot, like the English mole, feed on earth worms, for none exist in those
latitudes*.
As the teeth of the specimen could not be examined, the genus to which it
belongs is uncertain; but from its strong general resemblance to G. Douglasii and
G. umbrinus, it is placed with them at present. Some uncertainty also exists as
to the form of its cheek-pouches, which have been partially inverted in mounting,
probably from an attempt of the artist to imitate the cheek-pouches of a diplostoma;
but if so, he has been unable to give them the hood-like form of the pouches of
the latter.
* I was told by a gentleman who has for forty years superintended the cultivation of considerable pieces of ground
on the banks of the Saskatchewan, that during the whole of that period he never saw an earth-worm turned up.
DESCRIPTION.
Body shaped like that of the mole ; head rather small, but when the pouches are distended
it must have considerable breadth. The :obtuse nose is covered with short hairs. The
incisors are very strong, and have flat, anterior surfaces; the upper ones are short and straight,
and are each marked with a single very fine groove, close to its inner edge; the under ones
are long, curved inwards, and not grooved. The whiskers are composed of fine hairs as long
as the head. The eyes are small and far back. The auditory opening is capable of receiving
the head of a pin, and is slightly margined. The pouches are covered on the outside with
fur of the Same Colour with that on the back, but beneath and on their posterior- margins
their hairy covering is white. On the head and body the fu r is of a grayish-black colour
its whole length, with a faint brownish reflection in some lights, and it is as fine as that of
the common mole, but.not quite so close and velvety. The chin and throat are white. The
tail i,s very short and cylindrical, and is covered by a close smooth coat of short white, hairs.
The extremities are very short.; the fore-foot has four toes and the rudiment of a thumb.
Of these the middle toe is the longest, and has the largest claw ; the first and third are equal
to each other in length ; the outer one is shorter and far back, and the thumb is still farther
back, and consists merely of a short claw. The fore-claws are long, compressed, slightly-
curved and pointed. There are four short tofes on the hind-foot, armed with compressed
claws much shorter than the fore-ones, and the rudiment of a fifth toe, so small that it was
discovered only after very minute inspection.
Dimensions
Of the specimen in
Inches. Lines.
Length of head and body 7 4
.. £ tail . • • : • 1 10
5, from end of nose to the eye . 0 9
,, from ditto to the auditory opening
from back part of the eye to the
1 3
auditory opening 0 6
Height of the back . . • 2 0
Length of the lower incisors 0 5
Zoological Museum.
Length of the fur on the back . • 0
, from the tubercle at the posterior
part of the palm to the end of the middle
fore-claw . • . . 0
„ of middle fore-claw -. . 0
„ from the heel to the tip of the middle
hind-claw -• .. 0
Lines.
6
10i
4
11