148 * THE MOLE. 



perfect vision, and, like insects, have not any exter- 

 nal ear, or manifest organ through which sounds 

 can be received ; yet we can in no way for a mo- 

 ment suppose that they have been created with 

 any deficiency of power to accomplish all the objects 

 of their being, but that every possible exigency has 

 been provided for. Perceptions may be conveyed in 

 very many instances by intelligences unknown to us, 

 and unquestionably are so. The defect of one power 

 is frequently supplied by the increased activity of 

 another; and the sense of smelling in the mole 

 must be unusually acute, to enable it to pursue 

 and capture its prey with the facility that it does. 

 Its sole food, we believe, is worms; and these 

 sensitive creatures retire immediately upon the 

 smallest moving of the earth in which they reside. 

 Now, as it follows them through all their meander- 

 ings, in which neither eyes nor ears would assist it, 

 a fine sense of smelling seems necessary to enable 

 it to catch them ; and that its success is equal to its 

 wants, and that it feeds plentifully, is manifest by 

 the excellent condition in which the mole is at all 

 seasons of the year. It will penetrate banks of 

 earth after worms lodged in their interior, hunt for 

 them in the richest parts of the field, or on the 

 edges of dung-heaps : in all which pursuits some 

 unknown faculties may direct it ; but no sense, that 

 we are acquainted with, could promote its objects so 

 effectually as that of smell, My talparius, a very 



