The Mole 



Adeline M. Wenger 

 Teacher of Nature-Study, Riordan School, Highland, N. Y. 



It was with the recollection of the story of Daniel Webster's 

 eloquent plea for the life of the woodchuck caught in a trap by 

 his brother, Ezekiel and their father's decision upon hearing both 

 pros and cons for the sparing of that life, uttered in the words, 

 "Zeke! Zeke! You let that woodchuck go!" that I determined 

 to offer my plea no doubt less eloquent, though just as earnest, 

 for the life of the mole. I can almost hear the "humph" of the 

 farmer or gardener who may have read thus far. I know the 

 objections you have to offer, but will you not bear with me for a 

 brief space of time, and read this through? I feel that, with a 

 fuller knowledge of the mole's life and habits, you will not be 

 quite so rash in your destruction of this little underground dweller. 



Tell all your wise men, who pronounce me blind, 

 My eyes are good tho small and hard to find, — 

 Yet even so, serve better than their own, 

 Else they had looked, nor said that I have none. 



— Edith M. Thomas. 



Let us not alone look for the eyes of the mole, but thru them, 

 and get an intelligent understanding of those "molehills" which 

 disfigure our lawns and gardens, and so often seal the doom of 

 this creature. 



The Family Talpidas, or moles, and their relatives of the family 

 Soricidae, or Shrews, belong to the order of mammals known as 

 Insectivora, which name suggests the food upon which they mainly 

 subsist. 



Ernest Ingersoll, in the volume on Mammals, of his work, 

 "The Life of Animals," tells us that there is direct and indirect 

 evidence that the Order Insectivora can be traced far back to the 

 age of Reptiles of the Jurassic period. One scientist, whom he 

 quotes, says they are "little-altered survivors of some of the most 

 primitive placental mammals." They failed to keep pace with 

 the progress of other groups and today there are few represen- 

 tatives left. Those that have survived have done so because of 

 special means of defense, as the hedgehog; or by living a sub- 



