80 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
and almost concealed in the fur. At one time it was a popular delusion 
that the mole was devoid of the power of sight, but this is not the case. 
The sense of hearing is extremely acute, and the tympanum is large, 
although externally there is no aural development. The tail is short, 
the fur set vertically in the skin, whence it is soft and velvety. The 
bones of the pubis do not join, and the young when produced are large. 
The mamme are six in number. The jaws are weak, the incisors are 
six above and eight below. The canines (false molars ?) have two 
roots. There are four false molars above and three below, and three 
molars with pointed cusps. 
Moles live principally on earth-worms, snails, and small insects, 
though they are also said to devour frogs and small birds. They are 
more common in Europe than in India, where the few known species 
are only to be found in hilly parts. I have, I think, procured them on 
the Satpura range some years ago, but I cannot speak positively to the 
fact at this lapse of time, as I had not then devoted much attention to 
the smaller mammalia, and it is possible that my supposed moles were a 
“species of shrew. 
They are seldom if ever trapped in India, for the simple reason that 
they are not considered worth trapping, and the destruction of moles in 
England has long been carried on in the same spirit of ignorance which 
led farmers, both there and in France, to destroy small birds wholesale, 
till they did themselves much injury by the multiplication of noxious 
insects. Moles, instead of being the farmers’ foes, are the farmers’ 
friends. Mr. Buckland in his notes to Gilbert White’s ‘ Natural History 
of Selborne’ (Macmillan’s édition de luxe of 1876)—says: “‘ After dinner 
we went round the sweetstuff and toy booths in the streets, and the 
vicar, my brother-in-law, the Rev. H. Gordon, of Harting, Petersfield, 
Hants, introduced me to a merchant of gingerbread nuts who was a 
great authority on moles. He tends cows for a contractor who keeps a 
great many of the animals to make concentrated milk for the navy. 
_ The moles are of great service; eat up the worms that eat the grass, 
and wherever the moles have been afterwards the grass grows there 
very luxuriantly. When the moles have eaten all the grubs and the 
worms in acertain space, they migrate to another, and repeat their 
gratuitous work. The grass where moles have been is always the best 
for cows.” In another place he says: ‘‘M. Carl Vogt relates an 
instance of a landed proprietor in France who destroyed every mole 
upon his property. The next season his fields were ravaged with wire- 
worms, and his crops totally destroyed. He then purchased moles of 
his neighbours, and preserved them as his best friends.” 
The poor little despised mole has had its part to play in history. My 
readers may remember that William the Third’s horse is supposed to 
have put his foot into a mole-pit, and that the king’s death was 
