148 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [LECT. VI. 



Nevertheless, she loves and rewards workers ; and this 

 small, blind Sampson does, in his prison, feats that 

 would seem fine sport to any one observing them. In 

 softish earth he almost swims, whilst with hands and 

 feet he pursues his way, and sinks, or creeps, or wades, 

 or flies, through the dark, heavy medium. Perfect are 

 the instruments that nature has given him for his 

 digging work, and perfect are the instruments she has 

 given this little waster, wherewith to destroy the count- 

 less living creatures of lower sorts that are struggling 

 in the dark, for life, with him. The Mole did not 

 become subterrestrial just lately, but a long time ago ; 

 his hereditary digging-paws show themselves, as diag- 

 nostics, when the embryo is one-third of an inch in 

 length. The early appearance of the forwardly-placed, 

 huge, digging hands, is surely evidence of an old in- 

 heritance. 



The power of hearing in the Mole evidently compen- 

 sates, in some degree, for want of sight ; the concha is 

 aborted, but there is a jointed cartilaginous meatus (or 

 tube), and a very perfect and labyrinthic ear-drum. So 

 that Caliban spoke well when he said 



"Tread softly, that the blind Mole hear not your foot-fall." 



I know of no creature the study of which would so 

 well reward the teleologist as the Mole ; and none that 

 would lead him into such bogs of difficulty, if he were 

 a mere teleologist. For, nature, or the morphological 



