THE VARNISHED TALE 



" varmint,"" and all they care about is its destruction. 

 The few other people who are really interested in the 

 animal's works and ways unfortunately seldom take the 

 trouble and not a little trouble is called for to observe 

 its habits for themselves; they are content to read the 

 account given by another man, who has himself relied on 

 what some one else has written, and so forth, until at last a 

 time-honoured tradition arises, and nobody thinks of in- 

 quiring whether or not it is a true one. Of course, if the 

 man who told the story first watched the animal very care- 

 fully, and wrote down just exactly what he saw, and if the 

 other people copied very carefully what he wrote, no great 

 harm would be done, though it would be better if they all 

 used their eyes now and then to make sure that they were 

 not talking nonsense, instead of relying wholly upon books. 



The mole's fortress is one of the things about which a 

 great many learned people have made foolish statements, 

 merely because they have never taken pains to examine one. 

 About a hundred years ago a French gentleman wrote an 

 interesting book about the mole, in which he gave on the 

 whole an accurate account of the animal. Here and there, 

 however, he added little touches for which there was not 

 the least need to the picture, to make it still more interest- 

 ing and wonderful, and this embellished and decorative 

 narrative has been handed down from one writer to another, 

 receiving other picturesque touches by the way, during a 

 whole century, without a single one of these learned people 

 seeming to suspect that it was anything more than " a 

 round, unvarnished tale." 



If, therefore, you turn to an account of the mole's fortress 

 as given in almost any popular treatise on natural history, 

 you are pretty sure to find it stated that the animal, after a 

 careful study of the surrounding neighbourhood, selects with 



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