2i6 THE OPEN COUNTRY 



dead leaves, moss, and other material, offers the greatest security to the animal 

 when asleep or resting. 



Moles generally live in rich, loose soil which, although not absolutely wet, is 

 damp enough to contain a sufficient number of worms. They hunt in the morning, 

 at noon, and in the evening, and thus pass through the principal gallery six times 

 a day. They eat insects and their larvse, and also snails, but prefer field-mice, shrew- 

 mice, lizards, and frogs, and above all worms, which are especially abundant in 

 winter, great quantities of which are said to be sometimes found immured in the walls 

 of the passages by frost, with their heads bitten off but the rest of their body still 

 alive. To appease its hunger, the mole requires every day an amount of food 

 equivalent in weight to itself, and if this is not procurable it dies within 

 twenty-four hours. As soon as it has eaten its fill it lies down to rest, but, after six 

 hours, huncer causes it to wake again, and urges it to the hunting-ground, the 

 tunnelling of which requires a considerable amount of muscular force. In finding 

 its food the mole relies on its exceedingly keen sense of smell, but its hearing, in spite 

 of the very small apertures of the ears, is equally acute. Although they are very 

 minute, the mole is also said to use its eyes, which are covered with hairs all over ; 

 when the animal is compelled to swim, these hairs separate like rays, and the power 

 of vision thus appears to be of considerable use when crossing rivers or leaving 

 flooded lands. 



In spite of the position of its fore-feet, the mole runs quickly, and in its 



principal gallery moves almost with the speed of a trotting horse. On meeting 



another mole, a field-mouse, or a shrew-mouse in its tunnels, it fights with the 



intruder; the surviving mole generally devouring the slaughtered enemy. Each 



mole keeps its habitation, -with the surrounding passages, entirely to itself, except 



during pairing-time, when these animals live in couples. During this season fatal 



duels often take place between the males for the possession of the females, which are 



much fewer in number. When a mole discovers a rival, he shuts up the female in 



one of the passages, returns to the intruder and enlarges the passages for a fighting 



arena at the spot where they meet, and a battle takes place, which generally ends only 



in death or escape. During the combat the imprisoned female, instead of remaining 



inactive, tries to escape by digging new tunnels, until the conqueror follows and 



takes her back. After these preliminaries, when the male and female have grown 



accustomed to each other's society, they both work at the galleries. The female 



prepares a nest for her young, which is generally situated at the junction of three 



or more tunnels, in order to facilitate escape, and is lined with leaves and other soft 



parts of plants, bitten into short pieces. Between the middle of April and the end 



of June, sometimes also in August, the female produces from three to five (rarely 



six or seven) naked young, which have both eyes and ears closed. In about five 



weeks these attain to half the size of the parents, although they do not even then 



leave the nest unless impelled by hunger to seek their parent, who may perhaps have 



been captured. Both the young and her partner seem to feel the loss of the female, as 



the bodies of dead males have often been found alongside those of their captured mates. 



„ , „„ The list of the European mammals of the fields concludes with the 



Musk-Shrew. r 



musk-shrews, which are unknown in the British Isles. Their most 

 familiar continental representative is Crocidura swaveolens, which is dark brown 



