252 



MOLE. 



we are inclined to the belief that, in places in or 

 nearly in a state of nature, the mole must be a very 

 useful animal, whether we may be prepared or not 

 prepared to say in what its specific use consists. The 

 usual ground upon which its advocates take their 

 stand is the drainage effected by its runs, and the 

 loosening and turning up of the soil by its heaps and 

 hills. We do not think that there is much, or any- 

 thing, in either of these. They are too exclusively 

 formed upon human contrivances for being at all 

 applicable in wild nature. It is true that we have 

 often seen a mole-run upon a slope discharging water 

 like a copious spring. We also know that the earth 

 thrown up in mole-heaps is finely pulverised, and 

 remarkably well adapted for the renewal of garden 

 beds, or for a top dressing to the ground in which the 

 heaps are cast up, if spread at the proper season. 

 Such circumstances, however, prove nothing. The 

 water which flows off by the mole-run would very 

 speedily run off the surface, or soak into such soil as 

 moles work; and reducing a portion of the earth by any 

 other means would answer just as well as the heaps. 

 The fact is, that the mole /follows the law of all the 

 other carnassiers, and is valuable for what it consumes, 

 not for what it does in the way of any kind of labour. 

 It is unquestionable that the labours of the moles are 

 valuable only in so far as they destroy the under- 

 ground animals, which feed principally upon the roots 

 of vegetables, or as they destroy the ground mice, 

 which, however, are not so destructive, at least to the 

 farmer, as those mice which attack corn after it is in 

 the rick ; and voracious as the moles are, and ample 

 as is the quantity of food which a single mole re- 

 quires, their structure and habits alike prevent them 

 from performing any very important service in this way. 

 The enemies of the mole have generally had prac- 

 tice along with them ; and thus, in the haunts of 

 an expert mole-catcher, the trade of destroying them 

 is not an unprofitable one ; and there is no doubt that, 

 under peculiar circumstances, it is useful as well as 

 profitable. In Holland, and also in some parts of 

 England, though to a less extent, the mole sometimes 

 does injury by mining through dams and fences, and 

 so letting out or letting in water in places where it 

 is not required. In such situations, and also in lawns 

 and gardens, where it is desirable that the surface 

 should not be disturbed, there is no question that the 

 operations of the mole run counter to the operations 

 of man ; but in wild places, especially in woodlands, 

 it is very probable that the operations of the mole 

 ought not to be disturbed, nor is it at all unlikely that 

 many a mole-catcher receives his fee for destroying 

 a mole in a situation where its labours are far more 

 useful than his own. Some of those mole-catchers 

 are very expert in their business, and capture a vast 

 number in the course of the season. Mr. Bell, in his 

 work on British Quadrupeds, now in course of pub- 

 lication, in a very clever article on the mole, gives an 

 account of the success of some of those mole-catchers. 

 He mentions, among others, a Mr. Jackson, who seems 

 to have paid more attention to the economy of his 

 game than most persons of his craft, who for five-and- 

 thirty years has been destroying them at the rate of 

 about twelve hundred a year. It appears from the 

 accounts given by Jackson that the moles make pro- 

 vision for obtaining a supply of water without the 

 necessity of any surface travelling. If there is a pond, 

 a ditch, or any other permanent supply of water 

 within a moderate distance of the feeding grounds, 



. 



H 



they open a passage to it, with branches, so that cue 

 of the colony may reach it by turns, without an 

 chance of collision with his neighbours. The same 

 authority mentions that, if such a supply of water is 

 not accessible, the moles dig wells in various parts ol 

 their runs, and carry them to such a depth as that 

 they can command a permanent supply of water at 

 the bottom. Le Court, who has been already alluded 

 to, was perhaps, however, the most successful of all 

 mole-catchers that ever embarked in the profession ; 

 for, though his labours did not extend over a very 

 great breadth of country, he contrived, for five 

 months running, to catch at the rate of twelve hun- 

 dred moles in the month. He caught them at all 

 seasons and under all circumstances ; and sometimes 

 he caught the female mole when in season, and found 

 the attachment of the male so strong that it was 

 literally starved to death beside the trap ; nor was he 

 less successful in training others to the capture of 

 these animals, so that, though we are greatly indebted 

 to him for information on the subject of moles, the 

 moles themselves, as a race, are under no very parti- 

 cular obligations to him. He had studied the subject 

 so long and so intimately, that he knew at once, from 

 the aspect of the ground, and the sound which it 

 emitted when struck by a hoe or mole spade, whether 

 there was or was not a mole-run under it. He also 

 knew the time at which to place his traps so as to 

 make sure of his victims, and seldom failed in any 

 one attempt. 



The mole-traps used by Le Court were not of the 

 same form as those which are chiefly made use of by 

 mole-catchers in this country. With us the mole- 

 trap is but a clumsy instrument. It consists of a 

 little wooden cylinder, or frequently of a simple bit 

 of board, with two grooved hoops applied to the under 

 side. This instrument is let into the ground, so that 

 the opening of the cylinder or of the hoops answers to 

 part of the mole's run ; and in either case there are 

 placed two gins or nooses, which lie in grooves of 

 the cylinder or the hoops, and are connected with a 

 piece of stick outside on the surface of the ground, 

 which answers the purpose of a spring. When free 

 to act, this spring draws the nooses tight enough 

 against the upper part of the cylinder, or against the 

 board, for holding a mole in confinement in spite of 

 its utmost effort to get free; and to prevent this from 

 taking place there is a peg on the under side, which 

 confines the end of a bit of string, and so prevents 

 the stick from pulling the gins until this peg is re- 

 moved. This peg is so placed as that the mole shall 

 strike it with the greatest lever power, and drive it 

 from its place ; and while, when he " comes thunder- 

 ing on," in his career to rest or to feed, he loosens 

 and drives out the peg, he as invariably fastens him- 

 self beyond a mole s means of extrication. Clumsy 

 mole-catchers, in their zeal to make the spring of the 

 trap strong enough for catching powerful moles, some- 

 times contrive to make it catch only itself; and at 

 other times they place it in so bungling a manner 

 that the mole easily gets his snout under it and bores 

 it out of the ground, and, if moles are capable of 

 laughing on such occasions, laughs in his sleeve at 

 the bungling conduct of his intended destroyers. We 

 know not whether this may at any time happen to 

 the regular and more celebrated professors of the 

 mole-catching art ; but as one passes over grounds 

 where mole-traps have been set with industry, if not 

 with skill, it is no uncommon sight to observe half 



