MOLE. 



in which the feet, instead of striking under the body 

 of the animal, strike outwards laterally against the 

 concave sides of the run ; and, from the distance 

 between the feeding-ground and the castle, it is 

 highly probable that the mole has often to travel 

 over as much distance in the course of a day as a 

 larger animal grazing a rich pasture. At the times 

 when the hunger of the mole is satisfied it retires to 

 its castle, or other place of repose, and is understood 

 to remain about five hours in profound sleep after it 

 has had a very full meal ; and when this sleep is over 

 it returns to its severe labour with the same violent 

 energy as before. It does not sleep on the cold 

 earth, but forms for itself a snug bed of dried vege- 

 table matter, or sometimes of green leaves ; but it 

 does not appear in any case to feed upon even the 

 most succulent roots of vegetables ; for whenever a 

 mole, in a state of captivity, has had only this kind 

 of food presented to it, it has invariably died of hunger. 



The time of reproduction varies a good deal with 

 the season ; for moles are so very sensitive, that a 

 warm season and a cold one, or a wet and a dry, 

 will cause them to differ a good many weeks ; and 

 there is a great difference in the time of their produc- 

 tion in the more northerly and southerly latitudes 

 which they inhabit. February is understood to be 

 the average pairing time in the warm places of Eng- 

 land, two months the time of gestation, and conse- 

 quently the time of production April ; but, owing to 

 the susceptibility of the animals to temperature, the 

 young are often not produced till the summer is 

 pretty far advanced. 



As both sexes live solitary, the pairing does not 

 take place during winter, when they keep their castles, 

 nor until they begin to live in what may be called their 

 summer encampments. Those encampments are 

 more simple structures than the winter strongholds, 

 and they are generally made near the extremity of the 

 former year's working. The intersection of two runs, 

 which is generally marked by an ordinarj' mole-hill, 

 is chosen for this purpose, and an excavation suffi- 

 ciently large for the nest is formed by throwing up 

 fresh earth in the centre of the hill. Being at a 

 distance from the castles, and near the unbeaten 

 part of the feeding-ground, the moles are brought 

 nearer to each other in their summer encampments, 

 and it is then that the pairing takes place. At other 

 times moles shun each other, and at these times the 

 females are said to shun the males by every means 

 in their power. This, however, only excites them 

 the more, which is the true physiological cause of all 

 this species of shunning ; and, as several males are 

 often in pursuit of the same female at the same time, 

 desperate battles of gallantry often occur in the 

 galleries, and many a mole is said to form a meal for 

 his rival and mistress jointly. When one succeeds 

 in capturing the female, he does not actually bury 

 her in two cross roads ; but he is said to drive her 

 there, and keep her prisoner, until the cravings of 

 hunger compel him to take his leave, after which he 

 takes his departure, and returns no more. The 

 female instantly begins to construct a nest for her 

 young, generally, as is said, at the cross roads above 

 alluded to, and she barricades those ends of them 

 which are nearest the main roads and castles. This 

 is said to operate as a sort of taboo upon all well 

 disposed moles, for it is said to be held sacred by the 

 rest, and that a certain portion of the pasture near it 

 is also reserved for the j'emale during that time when 



she is least able to perform labours of the usual seve- 

 rity. The young vary considerably. Four or five is 

 the number most frequently met with in a nest, but 

 occasionally there are six, and at other times only 

 three. It is understood that the nursing lasts till they 

 are about half-grown, and that they are able to build 

 castles for themselves by the autumn of the same year. 

 Many of these circumstances are, however, a little 

 obscure. 



We shall not enter upon a question which has 

 excited some controversy, namely, whether, upon the 

 whole, moles do most good or harm ; but in this, as 

 in all questions of a similar nature, the whole turns 

 upon the meaning attached to the word good ; and 

 therefore we would say with the casuist, that " in 

 wild nature moles are good absolute, but among cul- 

 tivated grounds and gardens they are good only 

 secundum quid;" which, logically speaking, throws the 

 argument upon the quid, which is the " irreducible 

 case" in reasoning, and therefore always best left 

 alone. That moles are useful in wild nature must be 

 true, because they are generally distributed, and also 

 numerous ; but whether they are or are not injurious, 

 to man, as a cultivator of the ground, must depend 

 upon the nature of the individual case. That the 

 absence of moles does not conduce in any very high 

 degree to the natural fertility of a country is a fact 

 established by the case of those countries in which 

 there are no moles. In Ireland, for instance, there 

 are no moles, at least none which have been hitherto 

 seen either personally or in their working ; and Ire- 

 land, from enjoying more of the warm atmosphere 

 and dripping sky of the Atlantic, ought, latitude for 

 latitude, to possess a much more vegetating climate 

 than Britain. Such, however, is not the fact ; for 

 whether it arises from the nature of the subsoil, from 

 humidity, or from any other cause uninvestigated, it 

 is unquestionable that there is in Ireland a tendency 

 to run into moss, and ultimately into turf bog, to 

 which there is no parallel in Britain, excepting in 

 those high and cold places of the north which lie 

 above or beyond the ordinary haunts of the mole. 

 We do not mean to say that the mole is the preventive 

 of those consequences in England ; but we do mean 

 to say that the presence of the mole is an evidence 

 of soils fitted for growing the most kindly grasses, and 

 that such soils are always the richer the more abun- 

 dant that the moles are in them. Where the soil is 

 cold and sour, from impenetrable under-strata of clay 

 or gravel, into which no worm can penetrate, and 

 where water, impregnated with salts of iron, literally 

 corrodes the surface, as it always does in such places, 

 we never meet with a single mole-hill or run ; and, if 

 by chance a worm is found, it is blanched and tough, 

 so as hardly to be eatable by the most hungry crea- 

 ture that feeds upon such food. If, indeed, one wishes- 

 to form an accurate judgment of the value of lands- 

 without trusting implicitly to the tests of land doctors, 

 who are all more or less given to quackery, there are 

 few better criteria than the presence or the absence of 

 moles or mole-runs. Following the analogy of nature, 

 which is no bad guide in such cases, we would be 

 strongly induced to believe that, whatever it may be, 

 there is really some connexion in usefulness between 

 the very rich ground and the mole. In a state of 

 nature we find them together ; and as the mole, 

 though it may disfigure the uniformity of the surface, 

 never by any chance turns its pasture into a waste, 

 or lessens the quantity or vigour of surface vegetation, 



