Bars 
By the Rev. A, C. Smith. 317 © 


























in an instant, to work into the earth by means of its snout and fore 
feet, and thowing up its hind feet to dive (as it were) below the 
surface, and disappear into its own element. Not so easy is it to 
determine ow it forms the casts with which we are all so familiar. 
That the earth is pushed up from below, and through a very small 
orifice, is certain ; but Aow the operation is performed, has baffled, I 
believe, up to this time, every observer, while the appearance of the 
heap, if you examine it carefully, is exactly as if it was formed by a 
deposit from above. 
_ Having now sketched an outline of the life-history, and touched 
upon the general habits of the Moles, it remains to speak of the 
benefit and the injury they do to man, to describe the little pec- 
eadilloes of which they are sometimes guilty, and then to enlarge on 
their counterbalancing virtues. I will turn first to the mischief 
they sometimes innocently effect ; and acknowledge that in a turnip, 
swede, or mangold-wurzel field, when they burrow just below the 
plants, undermining whole rows of them and causing them to wither, 
it would be surprizing indeed if their presence was relished by the 
_ farmer: neither when they run their galleries (as they will in light 
_ soils) just below the surface in a corn field, loosening the earth at 
the roots, and thus depriving the grain of the moisture it should 
_ derive from the ground, are they in any better odour with the agri- 
 culturisf: again, in a well-drained pasture, when they burrow into 
_ the drains, and disturb the carefully-planned system for reclaiming 
marshy meadows; or in the case of the embankment of a canal or 
_ reservoir, which they perforate with their runs, till they have almost 
_ honeycombed it ; or in the eyes of the gardener, who is vexed at the 
unsightly heaps unceremoniously thrown up on his neatly-kept lawn, 
or even within the precincts of his flower-beds; they are certainly 
unwelcome visitors. But, after all, these injuries are but rare and 
easual and of a trifling nature, with the single exception of interfering 
with drains, which I acknowledge to be a more serious matter. Then 
think of the immense amount of good they are always doing, acting 
as scavengers below the surface! what a vast army of wire-worms, 
grubs, and other noxious creatures do they not consume! pests which 
would infallibly injure the roots and the corn of the agriculturist, 
