THE COMMON MOLE, MOLDWARP OR WANT 19 



are more frequently met with during the pairing season than at 

 other times, but on damp soft land they may occasionally be 

 seen at any time of the year. They may be straight and long 

 (as if the work of a male), having been measured by Mr Adams 

 up to a length of one hundred yards ; or much shorter, reaching 

 fifteen to twenty yards only, and tortuous or meandering 

 (suggestive of a female). They are probably the work of an 

 animal chanorino- its district, but whether of an individual in 

 search of a mate or otherwise, has not been determined. 



The structure of the fortress was long supposed to be based on 

 an unvarying plan of remarkable symmetry, and most text-books 

 complacently reproduce, apparently without attempt at veri- 

 fication, a stereotyped figure which owes its origin to Geoffroy, 

 with elaborations by Blasius. This figure is largely imagina- 

 tive, and differs from that presented by de Vaux, evidently as 

 the result of an actual dissection ; nevertheless it seems to 

 have met with universal acceptance until Captain Mayne Reid 

 questioned its accuracy.^ In 1891, Mr Evans, after frequent 

 excavations of " hillocks " in Scotland, confessed his inability 

 to harmonise them with the accepted diagram, and figured 

 the plan of one differing markedly therefrom. Occasionally a 

 close agreement may be observed ; but as a rule the departure 

 from the stereotyped form is considerable, a conclusion com- 

 pletely substantiated by that of Mr Adams, formed eleven years 

 later, after carefully drawing numerous fortresses. 



Mr Adams's plans show that sometimes the fortresses are 

 extremely complicated and sometimes very simple, but in no 

 case are they, as suggested by the books, built on a pre- 

 arranged system of labyrinthine escapes from enemies above and 

 below. On the contrary, the galleries are rather the natural, 

 incidental, and inevitable outcome of the work of excavating the 

 nest-cavity and piling up the superincumbent mound. 



"The site for the fortress having been determined," writes 

 this author, " a circular cavity as a receptacle for the nest is made 

 from two to six inches below the original surface of the ground, 

 except in boggy soil or low-lying land liable to floods, where 



^ The Naturalist in Siluria, 124, 1889, wherein are also some other interesting 

 remarks on the Mole, which I should have quoted had I been able to secure a copy 

 earlier. 



