THE MOLE IN CAPTIVITY 209 



was kept in a tub, wherein she (from its small size I think it 

 was a female) could dig and delve in 18 ins. of soil. 

 This was really too much, as she was seldom visible, and I 

 could not watch her as I should have liked to have done. 

 She had been caught in rather a curious way, being taken on 

 the surface in a trap set for a stoat. The man who had set 

 the trap was still near when it went off, he heard the snap, 

 went back, and found the mole caught by a paw. By a lucky 

 coincidence I was at hand, and had soon released the captive 

 and popped her into my glove, where she scratched and 

 struggled, and squeaked loudly all the way home. It was a 

 curious sound, something like the squeak of a shrew, but not 

 quite so shrill. 



Put in her new quarters, the mole dashed frantically 

 round and round, tried repeatedly to climb out, and then 

 buried herself, when I judged that from the heaving of the 

 soil she must be exploring the bottom of the tub. I was 

 surprised to see as she went down into the earth that she 

 scratched the soil out with her hind feet just as a dog or 

 a rabbit would have done. 



I put in some grass and leaves, and by next day she had 

 made a comfortable bed on the top of the gravel. All the 

 moles I have kept since have taken at least two days to get 

 accustomed to their surroundings and make a nest. But she 

 made a comfortable one almost at once, in which I could see 

 her lying, curled up into a ball of dark grey velvet which was 

 warm and soft to the touch. When she felt my finger she 

 squeaked, rolled over on her back, and kicked, then jumped 

 up and ran off down one of the tunnels she had made. After 

 a few days she got accustomed to being poked and no longer 

 squeaked when she felt my finger, but simply pushed her way 

 out of the nest and began to look for worms. 



By the end of the week her nest was an elaborate one, 

 with a bolt hole at the bottom, and three tunnels leading to 

 it just below the surface. As she got more at home it 

 became increasingly difficult to see what she did, for she 

 spent her time sleeping in the nest and burrowing in the 

 earth, so when some time later I got another live mole, 

 I determined to keep it in quite a different place so that I 



