48 UTILITY OF THE MOLE. 



hills are most abundant, owing to the wild thyme, and other salubrious herbs, 

 which grow upon those heaps of earth. The healthy state of sheep is par- 

 ticularly remarkable on the extensive pastures of Lincolnshire, and there Mole- 

 hills are extremely abundant. Deer, likewise, appear to be benefited by their 

 existence in their pastures. It is asserted as a fact that after the Mole-hills 

 had been destroyed in a park, which belonged to the Earl of Essex, in 

 Herefordshire, the Deer in it never throve; and to use the words of James 

 Hogg, better known as the 'Ettrick Shepherd,' "The most unnatural persecution 

 that ever was raised in this country is that against the Mole, that innocent 

 and blessed little pioneer, who enriches our pastures annually with the first 

 top-dressing, dug with great pains and labour, from the fattest soil beneath. 

 The advantage of this top-dressing is so apparent, and so manifest to the eye 

 of every unprejudiced observer, that it is really amazing how our countrymen 

 should have persisted, now nearly half a century, in the most manly and 

 valiant endeavours to exterminate the Mole from the face of the earth. If a 

 hundred men and horses were employed in a common-sized pasture, say from 

 fifteen hundred to two thousand acres, in raising and carrying manure for a 

 top dressing for that farm, they could not do it so effectually, so neatly, or 

 so equally, as the natural number of Moles on that farm would do it of 

 themselves." Thus then I have disposed of the first silly charge against this 

 useful and innocent little sub-cultivator, and would remark that it is not so 

 wise to throttle him as you may think. 



The second great charge against our "blessed little pioneer," is, "That he 

 eats the seed-corn, and destroys the roots in the construction of his hills." 

 This charge is so utterly absurd that it carries with it its own confutation. 

 That they eat grain I flatly deny, having examined the stomachs of many, 

 and have never found an ato4u of a grain in them. But it is stated, and 

 that on good authority, that sixty thousand bushels of seed-corn are yearly 

 destroyed by wire-worms, (Elateridce,) some of which it is well known to 

 naturalists, live in their larva state from four to five years, devouring the 

 roots of wheat, rye, oats, and other vegetables; in some seasons destroying 

 whole crops. Now it is upon these Elateridce that the Mole lives, with other 

 insects, worms, (Vermes,) frogs, (Rana,) with slugs and snails, (Limax and 

 Helix,) the two last of which, it is well known, are wholesale destroyers of 

 vegetable life in its young state. How absurd then is it to see the poor Mole 

 hanging gibbeted by dozens, his clever paddles stopped by cruel ignorance. 

 Well may we exclaim — 



"Oh, ignorance! where is thy blush?" 



"Prior to my coming to reside in my parish," says the Rev. G. Wilkins, 

 of Wix, in the "Farmer's Magazine," "the land I occupy had been for many 

 years in the occupation of a very old man, who was a determined enemy to 

 every living creature of which he could not discover the benefit, and his 

 enmity was especially directed against the Mole. In my barn, as a kind of 

 heir-loom, hung a bundle of Mole-traps, which I at once consigned to the 



