BOBBING FOR EELS 



hearing is crude in the extreme. Indeed, 

 hearing in the ordinary sense of the word 

 he has none. Mary Garden might sing at 

 the mouth of -his burrow and he would 

 never know it. Sousa's finest march on 

 fifty instruments count 'em fifty might 

 be played on the bandstand just over his 

 head and he would never feel one thrill. 

 The only sound he gets is a crunching and 

 grubbing in the earth near him. This he 

 feels, for he is the chief food of the grub- 

 bing mole, and that sound means but one 

 thing to him, that he is being dug for. 

 So when he heard that crowbar wriggling 

 and crunching in the gravel beneath he 

 used to flee to the surface in numbers. 



This man always whistled an eerie little 

 tune while he wriggled the bar. He said 

 he was calling them, and it was quite like 

 magic the way in which they hustled to the 



surface and crawled about his feet. Most 

 229 



