236 THE ELOEAL WOELD AKD GAEDEN GUIDE. 



backwards or forwards. The head is joined on to the body without 

 any neck, and has a long flexible snout, which penetrates the earth 

 like a ploughshare, while its short fore-legs have broad paws like fat 

 hands turned outwards, with five fingers and sharp pointed nails, 

 just fitted for first helping to rake away the earth, and then to 

 throw it back on each side as the creature ploughs its way along. 

 Since the mole spends its life in the dark, its eyes are very minute, 

 and perhaps enable it to see with a very little amount of light, 

 while its ears are scarcely visible at all. 



Though the mole travels so much underground, and does not 

 require shelter like most other animals, it has still a home of its 

 own. In the centre of one of the largest hillocks, or mole-hills, will 

 be found its nest, and nothing can be more curiously or artfully 

 constructed than these abodes. They are formed like little fortresses, 

 composed of two round galleries, one above another, communicating 

 with each other by five upright passages, while other '' runs," or 

 tunnels, branch out from the lower gallery in every direction, and 

 extend over a considerable space. In the centre of the fortress is 

 the principal apartment, in which the creature dwells, and from 

 which, if attacked, he can make his escape by any of his secret 

 passages. He is not obliged to be always burrowing his way through 

 the earth in searcli of food when such a system of tunnels has been 

 executed by him, but can use it as a sort of hunting-ground around 

 his fortress ; and we may fancy the proprietor of such a territory 

 running about his underground passages in search of worms, and 

 living rather at ease when once he has formed his abode, and dug 

 his tunnels that communicate with it. He has only to be careful 

 not to show himself above ground too often, if an owl happens to 

 dwell in his neighbourhood, and to beware of the traps of the mole- 

 catcher, who knows so well all his ways and habits. "When the 

 creature has to bring forth and rear its young, it forms a different 

 sort of nest in one of its raised hillocks, carefully constructed with 

 drains, so as to carry off moisture, and which nest is supplied with 

 plenty of leaves and warm materials for bedding. Moles do us very 

 little harm in our gardens, since they do not eat vegetables, and do 

 eat many animals of which we might otherwise have too many. The 

 underground passages they make seem also to break up the soil, and 

 help to drain it. Earth-worms are said to be so afraid of moles, 

 who prey on them so constantly, that no sooner do they feel any 

 shaking of the ground about them, like the approach of their enemy, 

 than they wriggle up to the surface of the earth ; and it is a still 

 more curious fact that those birds who also make worms their food 

 seem aware of this, so that thrushes and lapwings will be seen 

 knocking the earth with their bills, and stamping with their feet 

 round the holes of worms, in order to bring them up, when, of 

 course, the poor worm becomes the prey of the bird, instead of the 

 imaginary mole. Sometimes the soft velvety skins of moles are 

 used to make gloves, and pouches, and purses, and we have even 

 heard of a gentleman wearing a waistcoat made of mole-skins. 



( To be continued.) 



