T A L 



21 



T A L 



tiful supply of food is found, the mole proceeds to work 

 out branch alleys from its termination, up-heaving new 

 mole-hills as it advances in quest of prey : should how- 

 ever the soil be barren of the means of existence, the ani- 

 mal commences another alley at a different part of the 

 high road. The quality and humidity of the soil, which 

 regulate the abundance of earth-worms, determine the 

 greater or less depth of the alleys. 



Habitation or fortress of Molt 1 . 



The main road being the highway of communication 

 to its different hunting-grounds, it is necessarily passed 

 through regularly in the course of the day, and it is in this 

 road that the mole-catcher sets his traps or practices his 

 devices to intercept the animal between its habitation ami 

 the alley where it is carrying on its labours. Some mole- 

 catchers will toll you that the hours when the moles move 

 are nine and four, and others that, near the coast, their 

 movements are influenced by the tides ; to which state- 

 ments the hearer is at liberty to give as much credence as 

 he chooses. Resides the varioustraps which are set for them, 

 there is. or very lately was. n man who travelled the coun- 

 try with a dog and destroyed them without any trap at all, 

 bv the following process: Taking his station at the pro- 

 ;me and place, attended bv his dog, and armed with 

 a spear or spud, he waits till the do;; indicates the pre- 

 sence of the mole, and then spears or spuds the animal 

 out as it moves in its run. Pointers will stop at moles as 

 steadily as at game, when the latter are straying on the 



surface. 



lirMdes the excavations already noticed, the moles pur- 

 sue another mode of hunting in light loose soils, newly 

 sown, when gentle rains have led the earth-worms towards 

 the surface, along which they follow the worms up, rapidly 

 digging a shallow trench in the superficial layer of the 

 soil. The female, when with young, is said to be princi- 

 pally addicted to this easier method of subsistence. 



All the animal passions are strong in the mole, and it is 

 a most voracious animal. It has been supposed that it 

 was a vegetable as well as an animal feeder, and, as a 

 proof of the former, the fragments of roots, &c., found in 

 its stomach have been appealed to ; but there can be no 

 doubt that these vegetable matters had been conveyed 

 into the stomach with the earth-worms (their favourite 

 food and the larvsc of insects. The structure of its teeth 

 indicates that its food should be animal, and indeed mice, 

 lizards, frogs, and even birds have been known to fall 

 victims to its voracity; but it eschews toads even when 

 pnv^ed by hunger, deterred probably by the acrid secre- 

 tion of their skin. [FROGS, vol. x., p. 493.] All doubts 

 as to the carnivorous nature of the mole have however 

 hern removed by the experiments of M. Klourens, who 

 found that moles restricted to carrots, turnips, various 

 kinds of herbs, and vegetable substances which were 

 abundantly supplied to them, died of hunger. The mole 

 'ipears to require much nourishment, and a short 

 ves fatal to it. 



\Ve must not omit to notice the provision of this ani- 

 mal 5 :i supply of water, for its voracity makes it 

 a great di inker. If a pond or ditrh be at hand in those 

 I u'nere many mule-, use the same common highway, 

 a run is always formed to the reservoir: when it is too 



distant, the animal sinks little wells in the shape of deep 

 perpendicular shafts, which hold water. These wells have 

 sometimes been seen brim-full. 



During the season of love, at which time bloody battles 

 are fought between the males, the male pursues the female 

 with ardour through numerous divaricating superficial 

 runs wrought out with great rapidity, termed ' coupling 

 runs' and 'rutting angles' by our mole-catchers, and 

 traces d'amour ' by the French. The sexual attachment 

 appears to be very strong in the moles. Le Court often 

 found a female taken in his trap, and a male lying dead 

 close to her. The period of gestation is two months at 

 least, and the young are generally produced in April, but 

 have been found from that month to August. From four 

 to five is the general number, though from three to six 

 have been recorded, and in one case seven* in one nest. 

 The nest is distinct, usually distant from the habitation, 

 and not always crowned with a hillock ; but when a hil- 

 lock exists, it is much larger than an ordinary mole-hill. 

 It is constructed by enlarging and excavating the point 

 where three or four passages intersect each other ; and 

 the bed of the nest is formed of a mass of young grass, 

 root-fibres, and herbage. In one case, Geoffrey St. Hi- 

 laire and Le Court counted two hundred and four young 

 wheat-blades. 



In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 

 London, No. 3573 of the Physiological Series is the pos- 

 terior half of a pregnant mole, with the uterus and three 

 foetuses, each about half an inch in length, exposed in 

 situ: the ovarium is contained in a thin and transparent 

 peritoneal capsule, around which the oviduct may be ob- 

 served passing in the form of an opaque, whitei narrow 

 band : the uterine dilatation next the left ovarium remains 

 open, and the foetus is exposed inclosed in its membranes ; 

 the other uterine dilatations are left entire ; they resemble 

 blind pouches developed from one side of the uterine 

 tube. No. 3574 is the posterior extremity of the trunk of 

 a pregnant mole, with the uterus and five feetuses dis- 

 played in situ ; one of the dilated chambers of the left 

 uterine horn is laid open, and the foetus is exposed with 

 it.s membranes. The placenta is a spongy, vascular sub- 

 stance, in the form of an oblong flat band, with its long 

 axis parallel to that of the fetus. One of the uterine 

 chambers, with the corresponding chorionic sac, is laid 

 open in the right horn of the uterus, and the fetus is dis- 

 placed. No. 3575 presents the female organs of a preg- 

 nant mole with four fetuses, each one inch and a quarter 

 in length ; one of these is exposed in situ in the uterine 

 sac, two others hang suspended by their membranes and 

 the placenta; from the parietes of the uterus: in the lower 

 of these embryos the foetal placenta is partly separated 

 from the maternal portion, showing the fine areolar struc- 

 ture of the latter, which receives the fetal plaeentary 

 filaments: the maternal placenta is minutely injected, but 

 no portion of injection has passed into those foetal fila- 

 ments which are here exposed ; the capacity of the cho- 

 rion is very little larger than the foetus which it contains. 

 In the embryo which has been displaced from the chorio- 

 nic sac, the short umbilical cord, and the characteristic 

 form of the short and strong fossorial anterior extremities, 

 may be discerned : the external apertures of the eyes and 

 ears are completely closed. The canal leading from the 

 uterine horns to the external opening of the vagina is laid 

 open, showing the absence of any os tinea? dividing the 

 uterus from the vagina: a bristle is passed into the ure- 

 thra, which is continued through the clitoris. The author 

 of the catalogue (Professor Owen) observes that the pecu- 

 liar position of the vagina of the mole, on the outside of 

 the pelvis, is well displayed in No. 2810, above noticed, 

 and that by this modification the contracted pelvis offers 

 no impediment to parturition. (Cat.) 



Heavy charges have been brought' against the mole by 

 agriculturists and horticulturists, and the more grave ac- 

 cusation of being ancillary to the destruction of dykes has 

 been in some instances proved upon it. Mr. Bell, in his 

 interesting Ilixlnn/ uf Britixli Qtitidrupcd/!, sums up the 

 evidence against it and in its favour thus : ' In order to 

 arrive at a time solution of the question, it is necessary to 

 divest our minds as well of the prepossessions of the natu- 

 ralist as of the prejudices of the agriculturist; for we shall 

 probably find, as in most other cases, that the truth lies 

 between the two extremes. According to its accusers, 

 toudon' ' Magazinn of Nat. Hist.,' vol. ?1IL 



