310 A Plea for the Moles. 
was originally known in Anglo-Saxon England, in Denmark, and 
Scandinavia (as it is now in Norway and Sweden, under the title 
Vond), 2 name too derived from the same habit, being taken from — 
winden, to throw or cast aside; though possibly it may come from 
winn-an, to labour, in allusion to the laborious life of mining which 
this little animal undergoes. However, to proceed with a brief 
sketch of its formation and habits. 
It is a member of the Insectivorous class of quadrupeds, and I 
dare say most people, as they contemplate its apparently awkward 
form, and think of its subterranean existence, regard it with a pity 
which is by no means akin to love, but much more allied with con- 
tempt. I shall be very much surprized, if a careful consideration of 
its life and habits does not raise it in the eyes of all who ean admire 
ingenuity and skill, to somewhat of a level with the hut-building 
beaver and the cell-constructing hive-bee, creatures which, working 
before men’s eyes, have been happy in attracting general admiration 
and applause, of which others are no less deserving, though their 
works may perhaps be for the most part unseen and unknown. 
First let me call attention to the remarkable formation of the 
mole. Observe the cylindrical shape of the body, so well caleulated 
to facilitate its rapid progress through the subterranean passages 
which form its only routes of communication between the different 
parts of its domain: mark the head forming a long cone, the base 
lost in the shoulders, the apex formed by the front of the jaws. See 
the elongated pointed gristly snout, or muzzle, so elastic, so flexible 
and so strong, which sometimes is thought to serve as a boring in- 
strument, for perforating the earth: the prodigious strength of 
limb ; (indeed in the neck, shoulder, and forearm, it is said to be, mm 
proportion to its size, the strongest quadruped in existence:) the 
peculiar broadly-expanded flattened feet, or hands, or fins (as I had 
almost called them) so hard, so short, so broad, so muscular, with 
the palms or soles turned outwards, and with a sharp inner or under 
edge; armed too with the thickest and strongest of nails, the most 
perfect of implements wherewith to dig, and hoe, and throw back 
the earth in its excavations. Its limbs indeed present a remarkable 
instance of the perfection of development in reference to its habits. 

