THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 221 



never cease working from morning to night. It requires 

 nourishment to such an extent that if deprived of food for 

 a day it dies of inanition. It is a perfect eating machine, 

 gulping down every day an enormous quantity of food, so 

 that M. De la Blanchere was right in saying that " if we 

 could magnify the mole to the size of the elephant we 

 should be face to face with the most terrific brute the world 

 ever brought forth." l 



Had the fact not been attested by a savant like E. Geof- 

 froy Saint-Hilaire, no one would believe that the mole, 

 an underground animal par excellence, though buried be- 

 neath the soil, nevertheless catches birds in order to devour 

 them, The crafty mammal executes this bird-catching ma- 

 noeuvre by moving its muzzle slightly on the surface of 

 its mole-hill. The bird thinks it is a little worm stirring, 

 and swoops down to seize it, but finds only the hungry gul- 

 let of the earth-digger, which engulfs it in an instant. 



The structure of the workman is wonderfully adapted to 

 its kind of life ; its fore-limbs present two broad cutting 

 shovels moved by a muscular apparatus so powerful that it 

 alone weighs almost as much as the rest of the body. Its 

 muzzle, a movable snout, first pierces the soil, and its paws 

 clear the earth away in proportion as it is loosened. Aided 

 by such organs, the mole cuts out its underground tunnels 

 with prodigious velocity ; it is a living auger, a perfect 

 earth-borer. 



1 In Switzerland M. Weber experimented upon two moles. Such was their 

 voracity that in nine days they had eaten 341 white- worms, 193 earth-worms, 25 

 caterpillars, and a mouse, both the bones and skin of which they swallowed. 

 When he restricted them to a vegetable diet, they died of hunger. Messrs- 

 Duges and Flourens have proved that they perish if kept for a day without 

 food. 



