MAMMALS 59 



away. Formerly, these were regarded as food-stores 

 for the winter, but it is now thought otherwise. The 

 mole can catch more worms in winter than he can 

 eat ; this is all the easier because he can follow the 

 chase with less exertion during their winter stiffness. 

 He then stores up the superfluous quantity in these 

 chambers, which are thus a provision for the summer. 

 The fact that 1,280 paralysed worms and 18 grubs 

 were once found in a mole-burrow shows that these 

 stores may be very considerable. 



The winter-sleep enables the adult animals to live 

 through the cold months without food, but the young 

 need nourishment if they are to grow ; this is supplied 

 at first by the breasts of the mother, but her supply 

 of milk again depends on a rich and abundant diet. 

 Hence it is that we find the young always making 

 their appearance at the time when food is most 

 plentiful, and the pairing - season is fixed earlier or 

 later to correspond. 



Spring is the love-season for only a part of our 

 quadrupeds. The smaller carnivora, such as the 

 fitchet-weasel, have it in March, and the fox has his 

 " rut " in February ; the former are pregnant for barely 

 two months, and the latter two and a half, so that in 

 both cases the young see the light in May. Other 

 animals have the pairing-season late in the year, as 

 is the case with the doe, which bears its young for 

 forty weeks, and so has its rut in July and August. 



Mammals are far from prolific when we compare 

 them with other classes of animals. But that does 

 not violate the principle we laid down in the first 



