108 OFFENSIVE ODOR OF THE MOLE. 



appropriate manner; to discharge the superabundant 

 heat, and keep the body temperate in some cases : in 

 others, again, to retard perspiration, and thus augment 

 the warmth, by every possible gradation, or to increase 

 the sensibility and perceptions of the animal. Many 

 instances of these effects and modifications might be 

 advanced, deserving a more extensive consideration. 



The smell of the flesh of the mole is remarkably rank 

 and offensive, as, from the nature of its food, might be 

 expected ; and it taints the fingers, which have touched 

 it, with its peculiar odor, so that one washing does not 

 remove it. It is reported of a late very eccentric noble- 

 man, but with what truth I do not know, who essayed 

 himself the flavor of every living thing, even to the 

 eating of the large dew-worm, that the mole alone re- 

 mained untasted by him, his stomach recoiling with 

 disgust at the nauseous smell of the flesh of this crea- 

 ture. Foxes eat moles, and will at times dig out the 

 traps containing them. The brown owl, too, feeds on 

 them, when it can meet with them outside of their runs 

 hunting after dew-worms ; and probably the smaller 

 vermin do the same : but the cat and the dog turn from 

 them with manifest aversion as food ; though they will 

 hunt and kill them as objects of the chase. 



These animals, we might suppose, while in their 

 subterranean dwellings, would be secure from all injury 

 by such as generally pursue their prey upon the surface 

 of the earth ; but I have several times known the 

 weasel caught in the mole-traps, making it manifest, 

 that it hunts after the mole for its food, and in doing 

 so, according to our comprehensions, must encounter in- 

 finite danger from suffocation ; but it is more ppobable 

 that so active a creature as the weasel is endowed with 

 powers to accomplish its object with impunity, which 

 we are not acquainted with. 



