134 TALPAD.E. 



gardener, from the notion that it occasions a degree of 

 injury, more or less serious, to various products of the 

 soil. This absolute proscription of a whole species can 

 only be justified, if it can be justified at all, by the cer- 

 tainty that its devastations are so extensive as to inflict 

 severe loss and damage upon mankind, in this his primeval 

 and most important occupation ; and it will not be an 

 unreasonable or useless employment to endeavour to 

 place the subject in its true light, and to ascertain as 

 nearly as possible to what extent this character of an 

 universal depredator is deserved. In order to arrive at a 

 true solution of this question, it is necessary to divest 

 our minds as well of the prepossessions of the naturalist 

 as of the prejudices of the agriculturist ; for we shall 

 probably find, as in most other cases, that the truth lies 

 between the two extremes. According to its accusers, 

 there is no portion of its labours, no peculiarity of its 

 habits, no function of its organization, that is not the 

 means or the cause of ravage and devastation to our cul- 

 tivated grounds. The soil, say they, is rendered dry and 

 sterile by its subterranean roads ; the crops are killed by 

 the exposure or the destruction of the roots ; the plants 

 themselves are overthrown by the construction of the 

 mole-hills, or they perish from their roots being eaten, 

 or they are dug up and scattered by the superficial fur- 

 rows which the animal ploughs up, either in search of 

 food or in pursuit of its mate : large quantities of young 

 corn, too, are carried off by it to form its nest; and, 

 finally, its abandoned fortress becomes the resort of the 

 Field Mouse and other noxious animals. Thus the field 

 and the meadow, the garden and the plantation, are alike 

 the scenes of its ravages ; and De Vaux calculates that 

 the loss which it occasions to the spring corn alone may 

 be calculated at one-eighth of the whole produce. Then, 



