THE COMMON MOLE, MOLDWARP OR WANT 33 



every worm left for him. Baby moles, on the contrary, live 

 a surprisingly long time without food ; ^ in fact, their capabilities 

 of resisting starvation vary inversely as their size, the irregu- 

 larity being perhaps accounted for by some having fasted 

 longer than others before being taken from the nest." 



Although it has been stated above that the Mole makes no 

 provision for the winter, it must not be forgotten that many 

 writers allude to stores of injured or paralysed worms which 

 are supposed to have been collected for future use. The belief 

 is said to be widespread amongst mole-catchers, but, so far 

 as I can gather, appears to have been first printed by Edward 

 Jesse.^ An anonymous writer^ on the same subject has been 

 often quoted. This writer declared that when in company with 

 a man employed to poison moles, which he did through the 

 medium of earthworms, he observed him obtaining his bait 

 from cavities in the largest molehills of a marsh in Norfolk. 

 The cavities were round and *' beaten hard by the mole so as to 

 prevent the escape of the worms." This story was received with 

 incredulity by Edward Newman,* and doubted by the late 

 Thomas Southwell.^ Like many other statements advanced by 

 untrained writers, it would appear to be the result of imagination 

 rather than an invention. Although no trained zoologist has 

 had the good fortune to examine such an undoubted store of 

 worms, ^ many have found smaller "knots " or accumulations of 

 them. Southwell believed that such worms are merely indi- 

 viduals which, from one cause or another, have found their 

 way into disused runs from which they have been too feeble 

 to escape. What has been pointed out to him as an injury 

 inflicted in order to disable the worms, has invariably 

 proved to be the series of thickened segments known as the 

 clitellum. The flaccid, unhealthy appearance of such worms, 

 as noticed by Southwell, is independently corroborated by 

 Mr Adams, who sees nothing unusual in the matter, since he 

 has frequently, in digging his garden, come across similar 



* See also H. Laver. 



2 Gleanings in Natural History^ 6th ed., 136, 1845. 



3 Field, 13th March 1875, 267. 



* Zoologist, 1875, 4493- ^ Journ. cit., 1888, 21. 



^ The nearest approach is the statement of a farmer to Adams, that he found 

 " three spadefuls " of dead worms heaped up in the nest-cavity of a fortress. 



