MOLE. 121 



declaration of so acute and accurate an observer as 

 Aristotle, that it is absolutely blind ? It is not impro- 

 bable that the solution of this difficulty rests in the 

 existence, now well ascertained, of a second species of 

 Mole, indigenous, like the present, to the south of 

 Europe, the eyelids of which are totally closed, whilst 

 those of the common one are so far separated as to allow 

 the entrance of light ; and it may be supposed that the 

 former was the one which usually fell under the observa- 

 tion of that extraordinary man. To this second species 

 I shall have occasion to revert. 



The organization which I have thus slightly sketched 

 is destined to the fulfilment of instincts the most interest, 

 ing and curious. Every one is aware of the fact that the 

 Mole burrows for its food, that its nest is formed under 

 ground, that a larger hillock than the rest is raised for the 

 reception of its young; but it is not so generally known 

 that its subterranean excavations are of the most distinct 

 and determinate character — that there are permanent pas- 

 sages or high roads for its ordinary travels from one part 

 of its domain to another ; that into these roads open the 

 excavations in which it follows its daily labour in search 

 of food; that its fortress — the house in which it resides 

 from the autumn to the spring — is a complex and most 

 ingenious structure, and that this domicile is always a 

 distinct and even remote building from that in which the 

 nest is formed. For these and many other interesting 

 particulars in the life and habits of the Mole, we are 

 principally indebted to the researches of Henri le Court, 

 a person who, having held a lucrative situation about the 

 court at the epoch of the French revolution, retired from 

 the horrors of that fearful period into the country, and 

 there devoted the remainder of his life to the study of 

 the habits of the Mole, and of the most efficient means 



R 



