THE MOLE. 147 



tures ; and there is a strange narration in Buffon, 

 accusing them of eating all the acorns of a newly set 

 soil. I am not aware of any benefit occasioned by 

 their presence; their warpings certainly give our 

 pastures in the spring a very unsightly appearance, 

 and in grounds designed to be mowed, occasion 

 much trouble, by obliging us frequently to spread 

 and remove them ; and in newly sown corn lands 

 they disturb by their runnings the earth at the 

 roots of the grain. But, perhaps, these trifling 

 complaints, these almost imaginary grievances, are 

 the only evils that can be attributed to them. In 

 those wild creatures that are not immediately ap_ 

 plicable to our use or amusement, we are more 

 generally inclined to seek out their bad than their 

 good qualities ; and though I cannot produce any 

 instance in which the utility of the mole is mani- 

 fested, yet it is reasonable to conclude, that they are 

 eminently so, either directly or collaterally, nature 

 having provided in an especial manner for a con- 

 stant supply *, and their increase is prodigious when 

 they are not molested. I have killed for two years 

 in succession, between forty and fifty each season, 

 in a very few acres of ground ; and notwithstanding 

 all our stratagems for their destruction, and the 

 ease with which they are entrapped, still plenty 

 always remain to recruit our annual waste of them. 

 These creatures are supposed to have a very im- 

 * See Ray's Synopsis. 



