OFFENSIVE ODOUR OF THE MOLE. 



have touched it, with its peculiar odour, so that 

 one washing does not remove it. 'It is reported of a 

 late very eccentric nobleman, but with what truth 

 I do not know, who essayed himself the flavour of 

 every living thing, even to the eating of the large 

 dew-worm, that the mole alone remained untasted 

 by him, his stomach recoiling with disgust at the 

 nauseous smell of the flesh of this creature. Foxes 

 eat moles, and will at times dig out the traps con- 

 taining 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 infinite danger from suffocation ; 

 but it is more probable that so active a creature as 

 the weasel is endowed with powers to accomplish its 

 object with impunity, which we are not acquainted 

 with . 



