116 TALPAD.E. 



a more intimate acquaintance with its history. Blind, 

 awkward, and shapeless, condemned to a life of inces- 

 sant toil in subterranean darkness, its very existence only 

 indicated by the ravages which it perpetrates in our fields 

 and gardens, the sole feeling which it excites in the 

 mind of a casual observer is pity for the gloomy and 

 laborious life to which it is subjected, or a determined 

 hostility and desire for its extermination. 



But if, on further investigation, this animal, apparently 

 so helpless and miserable, be shown to possess as nume- 

 rous and efficient means of happiness as any of the more 

 obviously favoured species, if, in addition to immense 

 strength, undaunted courage, and indefatigable perseve- 

 rance, we find that it evinces the skill of a consummate 

 engineer, an unerring and varied instinct, and the most 

 ardent conjugal attachment, how different are the feel- 

 ings with which we contemplate the former object of our 

 contempt and pity. There is, however, another side to 

 this picture. Interesting as its habits and instincts are 

 to the naturalist, who sees in them only fresh proofs of 

 the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator, which can 

 render a life so apparently incompatible with comfort, in 

 reality one of almost incessant enjoyment, the agricul- 

 turist looks with far different eyes upon the devastations 

 committed in the different labours to which its varied 

 instincts direct it, in the long subterranean galleries, the 

 upheavings of the soil, and the superficial traces which it 

 forms, all of which he deprecates, whether deservedly 

 or not, as so many causes of serious injury to the district 

 which the intruder has chosen for its own domain. 



The one prominent circumstance which strikes us on 

 looking either at the habits or structure of the Mole, is 

 that labour hard and almost incessant labour is its 

 necessary doom. Its feeding and its habitation, its 



