Timmy Greene, age 12, of Gastonia, North Carolina, for his question:

How does a mole do his underground digging?

Mr. Mole is one of the world's greatest diggers and his digging is done in the darkness dust below the surface of the ground. Nature has given him a pair of excellent shovels for the ,job. They are two wide front paws fitted with long sturdy claws. His legs are too short to notice and the huge paws seem to be fixed directly onto his body. As he digs his underground tunnels, the mole moves his frost paws somewhat like a swimmer doing the breast stroke. As they move to and fro they shovel a hole in the dirt ahead. The mole keeps pushing his streamlined body forward through the growing tunnel.

Many observers have clocked the speed of his digging. At a leisurely pace he may dig two to four feet of tunnel in an hour. But when in a hurry, he has been known to tunnel more than ten feet in an hour. His tunnels zig zag and fork from side to side. The purpose in digging them is to find grubs, bugs and any other morsels of food to be found in the ground.