COMMON MOLE. 5\7 



and female, that they seem to dread or disrelish 

 all other society. " They enjoy (says he) the 

 placid habits of repose and solitude ; the art of se- 

 curing themselves from disquiet and injury; and 

 of instantaneously forming an asylum, or habita- 

 tion, of extending its dimensions, and of finding 

 a plentiful subsistence without the necessity of 

 going abroad. These are the manners and dispo- 

 sitions of the Mole , and they are unquestionably 

 preferable to talents more brilliant, and more in- 

 compatible with happiness than the most profound 

 obscurity. " 



The Mole is furnished with eyes so extremely 

 small that it has been doubted whether they were 

 intended by Nature for distinct vision, or rather 

 merely for giving the creature such a degree of 

 notice of the approach of light as might suffici- 

 ently warn it of the danger of exposure. Galen, 

 however, seems to have been of a diiferent opi- 

 nion, since he ventures to affirm that the eyes of 

 the Mole are furnished with the crystalline and 

 vitreous humours, encompassed with their respec- 

 tive tunics; so accurate an anatomist was that 

 great man, even unassisted by glasses. The learn- 

 ed Sir Thomas Brown, in his Pseudodoxia Epide- 

 mica, or Vulgar Errors, affirms that this observa- 

 tion of Galen " transcendeth his discovery;" for 

 that separating these little orbs, and including 

 them in magnifying glasses, he could discern no 

 more than what Aristotle mentions, viz. a black 

 humour. Mr. Derham, however, in his Physico- 

 Theology, declares, that he has made " divers 



