OUR FRIENDS— THE MOLE, THE TOAD, 



AND THE SPIDER. 



A PAPER WRITTEN FOR THE SUMMER MEETING OF THE STATE POMO- 



LOGICAL SOCIETY, BY EDWARD DORSCH, M. D., OF MONROE. 



MICH., AND READ BY PROF. BOYD. 



Gentlemek of the State Pomological Society:— If Mr. Bergb, at New 

 York, has the mission to j^rotect our quadruped friends, the horse and the dog, 

 allow me to-day to speak to you a few words for the protection of some of our 

 friends in the animal kingdom which prejudice and superstition have consid- 

 ered a long time our enemies, viz., the mole, the shrew and the hedgehog, the 

 owl and the chicken-hawk, the toad and the spider. 



the mole. 



Many of our farmers feel great satisfaction if their spade kills a harmless 

 mole, whose only crime is the little hill of earth he raises in our meadows 

 when he goes upon his underground hunting expeditions, and which can be 

 flattened again by the foot of the farmer before it hinders the motion of the 

 scythe or the mowing machine. 



Nature has given us the mole as a never-tiring destroyer of all kinds of 

 grubs, worms, larvas and other vermin which feed on the roots of our grass, 

 our grain-bearing plants and fruit trees, and at a place where we cannot fol- 

 low him. Nature has given him such a tremendous appetite that he dies if he 

 has nothing to eat for sis hours, and his only food is meat, as far as worms 

 and insects furnish it. Hundreds of moles have been dissected and their 

 stomachs examined, but not the least vegetable fiber was ever found except it 

 was brought to it by the devoured insects. Experiments have shown that in 

 case of want the mole eats up his kind and own family rather than touch any 

 vegetable. I know very well that the eyes of the lady will fill with angry tears 

 if she finds during her morning walk a few of her pet plants almost dying, on 

 account of the burrowing of a criminal mole which selected her rosebeds as its 

 hunting grounds, and threw up his hill next to her best geranium or helio- 

 trope. But if the fair lady would reason a little she would tender the gray 

 culprit a hearty forgiveness, and thank him for the extinction of the restless 

 enemies who feed upon the roots of her cherished plants, and she would press 

 down the earth again and water the injured flowers, which will afterwards 

 grow so much the better because the ground has been loosened. 



