Field- Labourers 67 



the mole lives on ; lives and labours, as some say, in 

 the service of ungrateful man. 



The sins alleged against him are : that he drains the 

 soil so thoroughly by his network of underground 

 galleries as to render it dry and barren ; that he 

 damages the crops by uprooting them, and by ex- 

 posing, destroying, or eating their roots ; and, finally, 

 that he uses such a large quantity of spring corn, as 

 much as a couple of hundred blades, to make his 

 bed, that where he abounds one-eighth of the crop is 

 lost. 



These are serious accusations ; but the mole is not 

 without friends, enthusiastic friends even, though pro- 

 bably not farmers or gardeners, and these declare that 

 the damage done is slight compared with the service 

 rendered. The soil is greatly benefited, say they, by 

 being upturned and lightened ; and they claim that the 

 mole takes high rank among nature's field-labourers, 

 and should be honoured accordingly, not only for his 

 work as ploughman, but also for his extraordinarily 

 large and voracious appetite for smaller animals of all 

 sorts, which do far more injury to the crops than 

 himself. 



It is, however, too much to expect that any gardener 

 of tidy mind should look favourably upon an animal 

 which throws up earthworks in the middle of his neat 

 paths and borders. The mole has occasionally done 

 even worse damage than this by burrowing through 

 dams and dikes, thereby causing inundations, which, 

 though they have their use in fertilizing the soil, are 

 not generally desirable where man has taken over 

 nature's fields, and would prefer to cultivate them in 

 his own way. 



