LLANDDWYN 3 



by the Moles. But a slight shower having fallen 

 overnight, here were the Moles above ground, more 

 widely abroad than they can have desired, and 

 scuffling along the wayside in their peculiar manner 

 when placed upon a hard, flat surface. 



Plump and able-bodied, they had suffered neither 

 by the drought nor by their fall. But the unyielding 

 surface of the road tried them. What they wanted 

 now were flat feet and open eyes, to run and beware. 

 But they had for all effectual purposes given up both 

 to become blind burrowers in the earth, lured to 

 degeneracy, it is to be feared, by the sinuous, succu- 

 lent worm. Outwardly they have eyes minute, 

 bright points sunk in the fur of the head; but it 

 would appear that the optic nerves no longer operate, 

 since a lighted match held close to the Mole's eyes 

 fails to affect it. Nor did any noise that we could 

 make visibly excite them. Acute sense of touch and 

 smell, however, resides in the delicate, mobile snout 

 advanced far beyond the jaw. 



The Mole exemplifies not only the natural law by 

 which failure to use any member of the body results 

 in degeneration and loss, but also the converse by 

 which special use of any part further developes and 

 adapts it. By forsaking life above ground, which 

 its still present eyes attest it once to have led, it has 

 become a blind burrower in the earth ; but by the 

 exercise of burrowing it has so modified its fore- 

 limbs, that no one, picking up a Mole, can fail at 

 once to be struck by their formation. Whilst the 

 hind ones are small, of only ordinary strength, with 

 the feet turned downwards for treading purposes, the 

 fore-limbs, although short, are out of all proportion 



