THE MOLE 167 



Indies, from Malacca to Borneo, as does the Small Rat-Shrew (Hylomys 

 suillus\ which is hardly bigger than a Mouse, and has a short tail. 



THE MOLE 



(Talpa europcea) 



ALTHOUGH, by reason of his subterranean life, he is comparatively seldom seen, the 

 Mole is a much more numerous animal than the Hedgehog, and most people 

 recognise the little sausage-shaped, pig-snouted body, with the plush-like grey fur, 

 at first sight. The eyes of the Mole are very small and hard to find, and there is 

 some dispute as to how much he can see ; but in any case sight cannot be of much 

 importance to Moles, as some foreign species are undoubtedly blind. There is also 

 no external ear in the Mole, but that need not affect his hearing much. Although 

 his fore-legs are extraordinarily short, with broad paws carrying five well-developed 

 fingers with long digging claws, his hind-feet are not noticeably peculiar in structure, 

 though with the same number of toes ; the tail is short and insignificant, and some 

 foreign Moles have it even shorter. 



The teeth of the Mole, having small incisors and large upper canines, rather 

 remind one of those of the carnivora ; and, for his size, he is as fierce a carnivore as 

 any, not by any means confining his repasts to his proper prey of the worms and 

 grubs he hunts for underground, but ravenously devouring Mice, Birds, or Frogs, if 

 he is lucky enough to capture such creatures. His own species is not exempt, if 

 slain in a fight a fairly likely occurrence, for Moles fight savagely when they meet. 

 They are, in fact, strenuous livers in every way ; they work as hard as they eat and 

 fight, and they have need to do so, for a fast of a few hours is fatal to them. 



The male Mole shows considerable affection for his mate, and the young are 

 carefully looked after ; they are born naked and helpless, and lie in an underground 

 nest lined with dry grass. The elaborate galleries of the castle depicted in books 

 as the Mole's fortress are, however, apparently simply the result of work on the 

 mound ;md nest. Awkward as the Mole appears on the surface, he can travel at a 

 fair pace, and is a bold and fearless swimmer on occasion ; he works all the year 

 round, merely going deeper when frost drives the worms down. One curious thing 

 about tl e creature is its great variability in colour, which, after all, is probably 

 simply the natural result of an underground life, this making it possible for off- 

 coloured specimens to survive ; at any rate, black, yellow, white, and more rarely 

 pied v ties are recorded. 



