NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Depredations. 



which was soon carried off by the moles to their 

 subterraneous retreats. In many of these were 

 found half a bushel, and in some even a bushel* 

 After this circumstance, our author caused a 

 great number of iron traps to be constructed ; by 

 which, in less than three weeks, he caught thir- 

 teen hundred moles. And in the year 1742 they 

 were so numerous in some parts of Holland, that 

 one farmer caught between five and six thousand. 

 Their depredations were, also, so formidable in 

 the time of the ancients, that a temple was 

 erected to Apollo Smynthius, the destroyer of 

 moles. 



Some authors have asserted, that the mole 

 passes the winter in a state of torpidity; the 

 Comte de Buffon, however, observes, that this is 

 so far from being the case, that it continues to 

 raise the earth in winter as well as in summer, 

 and it is almost proverbial with the peasantry of 

 France, that, " when the mole is at work, a thaw 

 it at hand." These animals are, indeed, fond of 

 warm places, and the gardeners frequently catch 

 them round their beds, in the months of Decent 

 ber, January, and February. 



The following description of the habitations of 

 moles, and an account of the methods in which 

 they are to be taken, cannot fail of proving ac- 

 ceptable to the reader. " The moles/' says Dr. 

 Darwin, in his Phytologia, " have cities under 

 ground; which consist of houses, or nests, where 

 they breed and nurse their young. 



