THE INSECTIVORA. 41 



find food in abundance and soft soil to work in, it is 

 wanting altogether. Very abundant throughout England 



and the Lowlands of Scotland, it becomes 



Distribution. . ,■, tt- i i i i • -l i. 



very rare m the Highlands, and is absent 



from many of the islands. 



The question is asked from time to time, "What becomes 

 of the moles in flood-time ? and I fancy the solution of 

 the riddle is to be sought in the instinct that prompts 

 them to tunnel in sloping ground in the neighbourhood 

 of rivers. This is at any rate the case in the Dover valley, 

 where last February (1897) I found hundreds 

 of runs in the soft soil of either cliff, but not 

 a single one down on a level with the stream. 



Of the structure of the mole and its marvellous adap- 

 tation to its conditions of existence, little remains to be 

 said. Built essentially for progress, always 



^^/.^^.,. hungry and always tunnellino- into fresh 

 peculiarities. °. *' i n 1 i 



hunting-grounds, all the strength of the 



" moudiewarp " is concentrated, as is apparent from a 

 casual examination of the skeleton, in the fore -limbs, 

 the others being comparatively weak. The fur, growing 

 perpendicular, lies equally well in any direction, thereby 

 offering little resistance to the narrow walls against which 

 it brushes. The mole can run rapidly, as Le Court proved 

 by placing little sticks with flags in its run and noting the 

 rapidity with which it displaced them.^ It is also some- 

 thing of a swimmer, though it is not known to take to the 

 water unless pursued by the weasel, its worst enemy 

 after man. As in the hedgehog, the senses of smell 

 and hearing are acute, and it is owing to this that the 

 traps of the professional mole-catchers often make large 

 catches on the most windy nights. There is, for all the 

 mole's keen sense of hearing, no external ear, but merely 

 an orifice hidden by coarse hairs. 



1 The value of this historic experiment has been called in question, for 

 a horn was inserted in the run and sounded to frighten the mole, and the 

 displacement of the flags has been attributed to the sudden air-pressure. 



