MOLES AND MOLE-SKINS 183 



spot of ground, thrusting it rapidly this way and that 

 and trying the surface ; and then, working its paws 

 like paddles, starts its shaft at once and soon sinks 

 out of sight. 



Most accounts of the excavation of the feeding 

 alleys from which the mole-hills are thrown up seem 

 to assume that the method is obvious. " The earth 

 is excavated and thrown up into hillocks." If moles 

 worked like nearly all other burrowing creatures, this 

 would mean that the animal entered the ground from 

 above and threw out the earth behind it, as a rabbit 

 does, with its hind-feet. But the mole when throw- 

 ing up its hillock never comes above ground at 

 all; neither does it throw out the earth behind it. 

 At the same time, it cannot push a cylinder of earth 

 in front of it, as the pith is pushed by a stick out 

 of a length of elder. What can be seen of its 

 methods when first sinking its burrow shows that it 

 digs, loosens the earth, and then pushes its way 

 through. But mere compression of loosened earth 

 does not give space enough for the animal to pass, 

 except when it is working only just below the surface, 

 when it lifts the earth into a half-cylindrical arch 

 above it. The progress of the mole below ground 

 seems, for it cannot be watched, to be achieved as 

 follows. It scratches away and loosens the earth in 

 front of it probably to rather more than its own length, 

 passing it backwards into the permanent highway 

 tunnel. This gives it a certain length of run in 

 which to work freely, and by constantly passing the 

 earth backwards it can make a tunnel of any length 



