AN UNDERGROUND FORTRESS 



rare wisdom some sheltered spot that is difficult to approach, 

 a place, for instance, which is protected by tree roots or the 

 foundation of a wall. You will learn that the dwelling is 

 constructed with great skill and cunning on a most ingenious 

 and complicated plan, which is described in great detail, and 

 you are led to suppose that the plan never varies. You 

 wonder how the mole ever manages to remember it all, and 

 how he contrives to find his way out of such an intricate 

 labyrinth of passages, for you are quite sure that you never 

 could ! Of course this ingenious description is " too clever 

 by half," and when I was a boy it sadly strained my con- 

 fidence in the accuracy of an author who was my greatest 

 hero, for I always failed to find a mole-hill anything like the 

 beautiful picture in his book. 1 I came to the conclusion that 

 the moles in my part of the country were very ignorant, and 

 that if they didn't make fortresses like the picture, they 

 certainly ought to. It was the picture that was at fault, 

 however, and not the moles ; for though their nests have a 

 certain resemblance to one another, no two are exactly alike, 

 and while some are very complicated, others are just as 

 simple. Mr. Lionel E. Adams recently devoted much time 

 during a period of four years to the study of the mole, and 

 amongst three hundred fortresses examined by him, not one 

 corresponded with the famous picture in the natural history 

 books ! 



The fortress is usually situated in an open field, and only 

 occasionally under a tree or hedge. Here and there, how- 

 ever, probably as the result of good fortune rather than 

 good judgment, a mole hits upon a situation of extraordinary 

 safety, as in one instance when a fortress was constructed 

 within the wall formed by a hollow tree trunk. What the 

 animal likes is abundance of food and water, and he does 



1 J. L. 

 35 



