ANIMALS. 3-15 



animal more, no way resembling the rat, except that its wliole 

 life is spent there. As we have seen some quadrupeds formed 

 to crop tbe surface of the fields, and others to live upon the 

 tops of trees, so the mole is formed to live wholly under the 

 earth, as if nature meant that no place should be left wholly un- 

 tenanted. Were we from our own sensations to pronounce 

 upon the life of a quadruped that was never to appear above 

 ground, but always condemned to hunt for its prey underneath, 

 obliged, whenever it removed from one place to another, to bore 

 its way through a resisting body, we should be apt to assert that 

 such an existence must be the most frightful and solitary in na- 

 ture. However, in the present animal, though we find it con- 

 demned to all those seeming inconveniences, we shall discover 

 no signs of wretchedness or distress. No quadruped is fatter, 

 none has a more sleek or glossy skin ; and, though denied many 

 advantages that most animals enjoy, it is more liberally possessed 

 of others, whic'h they have in a more scanty proportion. 



This animal, so well known in England, is, however, utterly 

 a stranger in other places, and particularly in Ireland. For 

 such, therefore, as have never seen it, a short description will 

 be necessary. And, in the first place, though somewhat of a 

 size between the rat and the mouse, it no way resembles either, 

 being an animal entirely of a singular kind, and perfectly unlike 

 any other quadruped whatever. It is bigger than a mouse, with 

 a coat of fine, short, glossy, black hair. Its nose is long and 

 pointed, resembling that of a hog, but much longer. Its eyes 

 ai-e so small, that it is scarcely possible to discern them. In. 

 stead of ears, it has only holes in the place. Its neck is so short 

 that the head seems stuck upon the shoulders. The body is 

 thick and round, terminating by a very small short tail, and its 

 legs also are so very short, that the animal seems to lie flat on its 

 belly. From under its belly, as it rests in this position, the four 

 feet appear just as if they immediately grew out of the body. 

 Thus the animal appears to us at first view as a mass of flesh 

 covered with a fine, shining, black skin, with a little head, and 

 scarcely any legs, eyes, or tail. On a closer inspection, however, 

 two little black points may be discerned, that are its eyes. The 

 ancients, and some of the modems, were of opinion that the ani- 

 mal was utterly blind ; but Derham, by the help of a microscoi)e, 

 plainly discovered all the parts of the eye that are known in 



