246 



MOLE. 



no mole in the barren grounds, or in grounds which 

 are so habitually sour that they have a constant 

 tendency to be covered with moss, to the destruction 

 of more kindly vegetation. We do not find the 

 mole in any situation where the soil is very thin ; 

 and when man habitually turns the soil, either with 

 the plough or with the spade, the mole departs, as if 

 conscious that its labours are not wanted. Wherever 

 we find mole-heaps, mole-hills, and mole-runs, there 

 is invariably richer grass upon the surface than there 

 is in places which the animal never visits. We do 

 not mean to say that the mole is in any respect the 

 cause of the superior fertility of those places in which 

 it is found ; but the mole is chiefly, if not exclusively, 

 an animal-feeder ; the animals upon which it feeds 

 all subsist upon the roots or buried seeds of vege- 

 tables (for there is nothing else accessible to them) ; 

 and therefore the mole must, from the incessant crav- 

 ing of its appetite, destroy a vast number of those 

 spoilers. Whether the disfiguring of the surface, 

 which results from the labours of the animal, is or is 

 not compensated by its labours in the cultivated field, 

 we do not take upon us to determine ; but it is cer- 

 tain that, in wild nature, the mole is, in temperate 

 climates, a grand conservator of the more kindly 

 vegetables ; and, as it is one of the most singular of 

 the mammalia, it is at the same time one of the most 

 useful. The mole is, in fact, placed under such pecu- 

 liar circumstances, endowed with powers so singular 

 and so great in proportion to the volume of its body, 

 and furnished with so strong an impulse to activity, 

 that obscure as it is in its dwelling and its opera- 

 tions, the judgment of sound philosophy would dis- 

 pose us to set it down as almost the very c/ief-d'ceuvre 

 of all the mammalia. On this account, and also be- 

 cause the animal is both despised and persecuted, we 

 shall enter somewhat more largely into the considera- 

 tion of it than we have done into that of more showy 

 and sunward animals. This account, in order to 

 make it perfect, will require some systematic arrange- 

 ment. We shall not formally divide it into sections ; 

 but the following is the order in which the different 

 parts of the description most naturally present them- 

 selves to our consideration : First, the organs of 

 nutrition, which determine the character of the ani- 

 mal ; secondly, the organs of locomotion, which point 

 out its adaptation to the place which it occupies in 

 nature ; thirdly, the organs of sense, which conspire 

 with the former ; fourthly, the organs of reproduction, 

 which are so peculiar that we cannot, in justice to 

 the subject, pass them entirely in silence, though we 

 shall touch upon them with that lightness and deli- 

 cacy which ought to characterise a work intended 

 not so much for professional naturalists as for general 

 readers ; and, fifthly, the manners of the animal, 

 more especially in the construction of its place of 

 abode, its grand subterranean passages, and the more 

 temporary mines in which it seeks its food. In all 

 these we may take the details on the general descrip- 

 tion rather than on the distinctive notice of the two 

 species, inasmuch as the manners of both species do 

 not appear to differ much, except in so far as they 

 are modified by climate. 



In considering the organs of nutrition in any ani- 

 mal, the teeth claim our first and principal attention, 

 because more depends on them than on any other 

 part of the organisation ; and if we study them well, 

 they enable us to determine the quality, and even to 

 form a tolerable estimate of the quantity of food 



which the animal requires. It is upon this principle 

 that Cuvier, the most philosophic of naturalists, 

 founded his classification of animals upon the teeth, 

 in every case in which it was possible so to found ; 

 and it is worthy of remark, that, whenever circum- 

 stances compelled him to abandon this character, 

 and have recourse to another one, the classification 

 is loose and imperfect, and it becomes impossible to 

 arrive at any knowledge of the individual genera 

 from the characters given to the order. Upon refer- 

 ring to the article MAMMALIA in this work, the 

 reader will at once see that this is remarkably the 

 case in the order Edentata, in which the character, 

 as dependent on the teeth, is negative, and more 

 especially in the Pachydermata, in which the distinc- 

 tive character of the order has no reference to the 

 teeth. 



The mole is one of those animals which possesses 

 the greatest number of teeth ; and though the ana- 

 logy is not perhaps absolutely perfect throughout the 

 whole system, as indeed no analogy of nature dis- 

 coverable by us can be, still it is true that the vora- 

 city of every animal increases in proportion as its 

 teeth are more numerous, whatever may be the struc- 

 ture of those teeth, or the nature of the food for the 

 prehension and preparation of which they are adapted. 

 The mole has eleven teeth in each side of both jaws, 

 and consequently forty-four in the whole, which is a 

 greater number than is possessed by the most formi- 

 dable of the regular carnivora. Counting them from 

 the middle of the front, there are on each side of the 

 upper jaw three incisors, one canine, and seven 

 grinders, of which three are true, and four in advance 

 of them false. The incisors are small, but they are 

 arranged with great regularity, so that, in their 

 edges, they are as keen and trenchant as knives. 

 The canines are very strong ; they stand much out, 

 and they are planted in the jaw with great firmness 

 by means of two roots, the anterior of which is by 

 much the larger of the two, and goes very deeply 

 into the jaw so deeply, indeed, that its extre- 

 mity reaches the nasal bone, which is placed as a 

 sort of key-stone between the fangs or roots of those 

 teeth on the two sides. This structure of the canines 

 gives them a very powerful hold, inasmuch as the 

 deeply -inserted anterior fang is the point upon which 

 the tooth would turn, and the tooth will not turn 

 upon this point without an absolute fracture of the 

 jaw of the animal. It is in consequence of this that, 

 when the mole once fastens, it cannot be made to 

 quit its hold unless its jaws are absolutely broken, or 

 some severe injuries inflicted on its head. The 

 three foremost false molars are small, leaving room 

 for the canine tooth to take effect ; but the fourth 

 one is large, trenchant in the edge, and approaching 

 more nearly to the form of a true carnivorous tooth 

 than the cheek-tooth of almost any other insectivo- 

 rous mammalia. The true grinders differ little from 

 those of the other insectivorous carnassiers, only the 

 points with which their crowns are beset are particu- 

 larly sharp. The teeth in the lower jaw are the same 

 in number as those in the upper, but they are dif- 

 ferent in their arrangement. Here, then, are four 

 incisives on each side, with one canine, and six mo- 

 lars, of which three are false and three true. There 

 is indeed some uncertainty about the system of den- 

 tition in this lower jaw, some comparative anatomists 

 being of opinion that the last incisive tooth of the 

 four is really the canine, and others being of opinion 



