46 RAMBLES OF 



smooth, as if much used; to examine it fully, I was 

 obliged to open it completely. (The next day, it was 

 replaced by another, made a little farther to one side, ex- 

 actly of the same kind; it was replaced a second time, 

 but when broken up a third time, it was left in ruins.) 

 As twelve o'clock approached, my solicitude to discover 

 the little miner increased to a considerable degree ; pre- 

 vious observation led me to believe that about that time 

 his presence was to be expected. I had trodden down 

 the gallery for some inches in a convenient place, and 

 stood close by, in vigilant expectation. My wishes were 

 speedily gratified ; in a short time the flattened gallery 

 began at one end to be raised to its former convexity, 

 and the animal rapidly advanced. With a beating heart, 

 I thrust the knife blade down by the side of the rising 

 earth, and quickly turned it over to one side, throwing 

 my prize fairly into the sunshine. For an instant, he 

 seemed motionless from surprise, when I caught and im- 

 prisoned him in my hat. It would be vain for me to at- 

 tempt a description of my pleasure in having thus suc- 

 ceeded, small as was my conquest. I was delighted with 

 the beauty of my captive's fur ; with the admirable adap- 

 tation of his diggers or broad rose-tinted hands; the 

 wonderful strength of his forelimbs, and the peculiar 

 suitableness of his head and neck to the kind of life the 

 Author of nature had designed him for. It was the shrew- 

 mole, or scalops canadensis, whose history and peculiari- 

 ties of structure are minutely related in the 1st volume 



