THE MOLE. 115 



Arabs under the El Jlkbar, or largest of the mus montanus. It is found 

 all over Africa, Syria, and other Eastern countries. It is only about 

 five inches long, stands upon its hind legs, and rests itself by some- 

 times sitting backwards, but seldom supports itself upon all its four 

 legs at once. When it thus stands upright, it has the appearance of 

 a compound animal a rat with the legs of a bird, in the flyingpos- 

 Uire. Its fore feet are so extremely short, that they are only used 

 like the ape's and the squirrel's, as hands to convey its food to its 

 mouth, and like the rabbit, to dig a subterraneous habitation ; but 

 the hind legs are long, and so very nimble, that it hops like a bird, 

 and with so much activity, that it can scarcely be run down by a 

 greyhound. 



The head and mouth of the jerboa resemble those of the hare, 

 but are different from that animal, by having- only two incisors. 

 The body is short, and having a tail nearly about the same length, 

 has caused it to receive the appellation of a rat. Its back and sides 

 being of an ashy color, with blueish stripes, may be called a sorrel 

 color. It is eaten in Egypt, and is esteemed very palatable ; its 

 skin is used as a common, though a beautiful kind of fur. 



The reader is doubtless familiar with the account of the great de- 

 vastation occasioned in the land of Philistia by this little animal, 

 (1 Sam. vi.), after its inhabitants had taken the ark of the Divine 

 presence, and placed it in the vicinity of the idolatrous symbols of 

 worship. Nor is this the only instance on record in which it has 

 made considerable ravages in that neighborhood. 



THE MOLE 



THIS curious little quadruped seems formed to live wholly under 

 the earth, as if the supreme Being meant that no place should be 

 left wholly untenanted. Were we, from our own sensations to 

 pronounce upon the life of an animal that was never to appear 

 above ground, but be always condemned to hunt for its prey under- 

 death, and obliged, whenever it removed from one place to another, 

 to bore its way through a resisting body, we should be apt to assert 

 that such an existence must be the most frightful and solitary in 



