6 Adams, Observations on a Captive Mole. 



young bank voles which I have come upon in hedge 

 banks ; by approaching them carefully I have been able 

 to tickle them with a stick, and even to take them in my 

 hand. 



The folklore of the mole is well worth collecting. 

 The Rev. A. Talbot, of Church Eaton, near Stafford, once 

 told my friend, Mr. C. Oldham, and myself that three or 

 four years ago an old mole catcher in the neighbouring 

 village of High Onn assured him that an infallible cure 

 for the toothache was to catch a mole, cut off its fore-feet, 

 and then release the animal, which would carry away the 

 pain ! So long as the two feet were carried on the person, 

 immunity from toothache was assured. The old man 

 had a mole's fore-feet screwed up in paper in his pocket ; 

 these Mr. Talbot secured after his death. Mr. Oldham 

 sends me the following extract from the report of a 

 lecture by Dr. C. B. Plowright on Mediaeval Medicine. 

 "Among amulets in use in 1903 and 1904, a teething 

 amulet formed of a piece of violet root {Iris florentina) 

 and suspended by a tape to the babe, and a pair of 

 mole's hands." 



Pennant in his " History of Quadrupeds," vol. 2, p. 484, 

 speaking of moles, says : " Pabna cJuisti and white 

 hellebore, made into a paste and laid in the holes, destroys 

 them." 



Since my first paper on the present subject was 

 published * I have been in correspondence with Mr. 

 W. Evans, of Edinburgh, who has kindly presented me 

 with a copy of his " Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh 

 District" (Edinburgh, 1892), containing a most interesting 

 article on the Mole, with a plan of a fortress by the 



*"A Contribution to our Knowledge of the yioXo. {Talpa europira)" 

 vol. 47, part II., of the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary 

 and Philosophical Society, Session 1902-1903. 



