158 RELATIONS. 



II. This mutual relation, arising from a subserviency 

 to a common purpose, is very observable also in the parts 

 of a mole. The strong short legs of that animal, the pal- 

 mated feet, armed with sharp nails, the pig-like nose, the 

 teeth, the velvet coat, the small external ear, the sagacious 

 smell, the sunk protected eye, all conduce to the utilities, 

 or to the safety, of its underground life. It is a special 

 purpose, specially consulted throughout. The form of the 

 feet fixes the character of the animal. They are so many 

 shovels; they determine its action to that of rooting in the 

 ground ; and every thing about its body agrees with this 

 destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as well as 

 the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness of 

 its limbs, proportionally lessens its labour ; because, accord- 

 ing to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quanti- 

 ty of earth to be removed for its progress. It has nearly 

 the same structure of the face and jaws as a swine, and 

 the same office for them. The nose is sharp, slender, 

 tendinous, strong ; w^ith a pair of nerves going down to 

 the end of it. The plush covering, which, by the smooth- 

 ness, closeness, and polish of the short piles that compose 

 it, rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, de- 

 fends the animal from cold and wet, and from the impedi- 

 ment, which it would experience by the mould sticking to 

 its body. From soils of all kinds, the little pioneer comes 

 forth bright and clean. Inhabiting dirt, it is, of all animals, 

 the neatest. 



But what I have always most admired in the mole, is its 

 'Cyes. This animal occasionally visiting the surface, and 

 •wanting, for its safety and direction, to be informed when 

 -it does so, or when it approaches it, a perception of light 

 Avas necessary. I do not know that the clearness of sight 

 depends at all upon the size of the organ. What is gained 

 by the largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye is 

 width in the field of vision. Such a capacity would be of 

 no use to an animal which was to seek its food in the dark. 

 The mole did not want to look about it ; nor would a large 

 advanced eye have been easily defended from the annoy- 

 ance, to which the life of the animal must constantly ex- 

 pose it. How indeed v/as the mole, working its way un- 

 der ground, to guard its eyes at all ? In order to meet 

 this difficulty, the eyes are made scarcely larger than the 

 head of a corking-pin ; and these minute globules are sunk 

 so deep in the skull, and lie so sheltered within the velvet 

 of its covering, as that any contraction of what may be 



