36 THE MOLE. 



that if the mole-casts are suffered to remain too 

 long unspread, the young grain or grasses must 

 surfer from suffocation, but this is the fault of the 

 farmer. There are also other benefits to be de- 

 rived from the mole. It devours not only immense 

 quantities of the larvae of the cockchaffer and of 

 various flies and beetles, but also destroys the 

 wire worm, and that so effectually, that few are to 

 be found in localities frequented by this useful 

 animal. When we consider the length of time 

 the grub of the cockchaffer remains in the earth, 

 before it assumes the shape of a perfect insect, 

 and the destruction committed by it on the roots 

 of plants, and when we hear, as we too often do, 

 of the ravages of the wire-worm, we may wonder 

 that the very instrument appointed by Almighty 

 God to prevent those ravages, should itself be 

 destroyed by man. I am however glad to find that 

 in some places farmers are now beginning to ad- 

 mit the utility of the mole, in consequence of 

 their having experienced the good effects of its 

 operations. 



I noticed in a former work a fact relative to 

 the economy of the mole, which I have not seen 

 mentioned by any writers upon this animal. I 

 refer to a sort of basin which it makes, and which 

 serves as a place of deposit for worms. M/St. 

 Hilaire, Le Court and other French Naturalists 

 who have paid much attention to the habits of 



