142 COMMON MOLE. 



and cultivated fields, becoming successively the place 

 of its abode, are also the theatre of its ravages. As 

 active as stealthy, says M. de la Faille, it continually 

 shifts its domicile from one place to another, overcom- 

 ing every obstacle, such as walls, ditches, and canals ; 

 and to avoid perishing in the midst of the waters, 

 or wasting its strength on entrenchments, which 

 often intercept its passage, it knows, by a wonder- 

 ful industry, to lead its galleries at a very great 

 depth under rivers and broad foundations. Should 

 it meet with an insurmountable impediment, it, 

 like an expert engineer, examines the ways, and 

 explores the ground, winds round rocks or hills, and 

 employs all the resources of its instinct' to open up 

 a path. But it is a destructive enemy that never 

 marches without spreading desolation wherever it 

 passes." Man is its principal and most destructive 

 enemy ; but it appears that it is occasionally preyed 

 upon by rapacious animals and birds, especially 

 Foxes, the Buzzard, and Owls. 



The Mole is said not to occur in any part of Ire- 

 land, or in Orkney or. Shetland. It is not met with 

 in any of the Hebrides, excepting Bute, and is un- 

 known in many of the northern and western districts 

 of the Highlands, but is distributed over all the 

 other parts of Britain, from the level of the sea to 

 the height, in some places, of a thousand feet or 

 more, although it is more abundant in the lower and 

 richer grounds. It exhibits several varieties as to 

 colour, being met with of a silvery grey, bluish - 

 grey, cream-colour* dull orange, and sometimes 

 \vhite, or pied. 



