_Distribution._--The lowlands of western Washington. Marginal occurrences are: Sauk (Jackson. 1915: 61); Skykomish (Jackson, 1915: 61) and Yacolt (M.V.Z.). _Remarks._--_Scapanus townsendii_ occurs only in a narrow belt extending from southwestern British Columbia to northwestern California. It seems to prefer a generally damper habitat than the smaller-sized coast mole, although both species are sometimes found in the same locality. The larger mole is abundant in the meadows on the flood plains of rivers at low elevations, and on the glacial outwash prairies. It is often numerous in the fir forests, although its workings and mounds are less conspicuous there. The bodies of nine drowned individuals were found in a well by an old cabin in dense fir forest near Duvall, King County. Townsend moles occasionally occur in the Canadian Life-zone, as at Staircase on the north side of Lake Cushman in Mason County where workings were observed, but most records are from the Humid division of the Transition Life-zone. The Townsend mole is mainly nocturnal. If ridges of its runways are crushed down, they usually remain so throughout the day and are rebuilt the following night. Only about ten per cent of the ridges that were crushed were rebuilt in the daytime, and most of these were repaired in the early morning. The species is almost completely subterranean. Some individuals are crushed on highways by cars, showing that these moles occasionally travel on the surface of the ground. Townsend moles throw up numerous mounds, each usually containing about a cubic foot of earth. The mounds commonly are built just about as far apart as a man can step. The general direction as well as the twists and turns of a mole's burrow can usually be determined from the mounds. Townsend moles also construct ridges on the surface of the ground by pushing up sod in building a tunnel just below the grass roots. Smaller ridges are less commonly made by coast moles. More extensive tunnels, constructed deeper in the earth, serve as living quarters. [Illustration: FIG. 24. Distribution of the Townsend mole, _Scapanus townsendii_, in Washington.] According to Wight (1928: 24), Scheffer (1922: 11) and Moore (1933: 39), the food of this large mole includes earthworms and ground-inhabiting insects, insect larvae, spiders, centipedes, flesh, and small amounts of soft vegetation. Scheffer (1922: 10) found that the large mole breeds in February and produces from two to four young at a litter, with an average of three. =Scapanus orarius= Coast mole _Description._--The coast mole is almost identical with the larger mole in form of body but is smaller. Head and body are about 5-1/4 and tail about 1-1/2 inches in length. The coast mole occupies all of the territory inhabited by the Townsend mole and ranges slightly farther northward, southward and eastward. However it does not range east of the boundaries of the three Pacific Coast states or British Columbia.