Manchester Memoirs, Vol. I. (1906), No. 1). 3 



ompany — I watched to see him adopt this method of 

 feeding, but in vain. I never once saw him bite off the 

 tail of a worm or turn it round. My mole after seizing a 

 worm with its mouth would hold it down with his paws 

 and feel the way with his snout to one end (as often the 

 head as the tail), and would eat the worm from that end 

 to the other in exactly the manner that Mr. Runciman 

 has described — by a series of short quick jerks. I have, 

 however, noticed now and then that the mole would brush 

 away the external earth from the worm with his snout 

 and paws before commencing to devour it. That the 

 mole is particular about the earthy contents of a worm is 

 doubtful, as I have as often as not found the stomachs of 

 moles full of earthy matter. Some moles, nevertheless, 

 may be more fastidious and scour their worms, but I have 

 never seen this done by any of the many moles I have fed 

 and watched. 



On one occasion a large lobworm had burrowed nearly 

 out of sight, when the mole came upon it and seized it, 

 but instead of tugging at it furiously, as I had expected, 

 and thereby breaking it, he held it taut, and presently 

 yielding to the gentle tension, it was secured whole. This 

 knowledge of the fragile nature of a worm, to say nothing 

 of the ultimate consequences of haste and fracture, is 

 remarkable, and the self-restraint on the part of so 

 impetuous a creature is still more so. 



On one occasion, when I had fed him till he could 

 eat no more, he took a worm, bit it with quick bites along 

 its whole length, and then crammed it into the earth, left 

 it, and turned about to find another. I gave him another, 

 a large lobworm, which he treated in precisely the same 

 manner, thrusting it into the same hole, which he straight- 

 way covered up by scraping the earth over it with his 

 fore paws. On two other occasions I watched him bury 



