THE STORING INSTINCT 189 



by the quaint tailless hares. We have not been able 

 to verify in the field what has been circumstantially 

 described, that moles make collections of decapi- 

 tated earthworms a store for days when the 

 ground is gripped by unusually hard frost. We 

 are told that these collected earthworms form a 

 living larder, unable (as they could in summer) to 

 regrow their lost heads, and therefore unable to 

 crawl away. As moles are experts in dealing with 

 earthworms and as decapitation interferes with co- 

 ordinated movements, there is nothing incredible in 

 the story. But it is a grim one ! 



We have seen, then, that at many different 

 levels in the animal kingdom a storing instinct has 

 developed. When we turn to man, pre-eminent 

 among creatures, we find very little evidence of any 

 such instinct. This seems the more remarkable 

 since in North Temperate countries prevision of 

 and provision for seasonal scarcity must have been 

 for untold ages of life-saving importance. It is 

 possible that the habit of saving and storing was 

 sustained from generation to generation by a 

 domestic tradition which has gradually become en- 

 feebled as industrial life, facilities of transport, and 

 communal storage made man in great measure 

 independent of local and temporary scarcity. The 

 duty of saving and storing was gradually shifted 

 from domestic to social shoulders. As one would 

 expect, the domestic tradition is stronger to-day in 

 rural than in urban conditions, for the man with a 

 multitude of diverse lives in his charge is doomed 



