184 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



it pleases. But should it wish to turn back, it would 

 be obliged to burrow again through this mass of 

 loosened soil. It therefore at intervals makes a shaft 

 upwards to the open air, and turning round, pushes 

 the loosened earth before it out of the shaft. As all 

 the earth lying farthest from the shaft has to be 

 pushed up through the lengthened funnel of the 

 mole-hill, this must be arduous work. But the 

 enormous strength and resolution of the mole make 

 light of this difficulty. 



In winter and hard weather they mainly work in 

 banks and in woods and copses. In spring, to use the 

 phrase of the mole-catchers, they " begin to run," 

 issuing into the fields on every side. Each mole is 

 believed to have a rather elaborate house, which is its 

 headquarters in winter, where it makes a bed, as de- 

 scribed by M. Le Court, who was both a scientific 

 naturalist and also the inventor of the modern iron 

 mole-trap. It is said that there is a great predomi- 

 nance of males among moles. But it seems more 

 probable that it is the males which are generally 

 caught. All mole-catchers know that the females are 

 much more difficult to trap, whereas the bulldog 

 courage of the male moles hurries them into danger. 



An English mole-catcher named Jackson, quoted 

 by Professor Bell, stated that moles dig wells for 

 water, sinking perpendicular shafts in which water 

 always stands. They are also said to store worms, 

 so bitten as to make them unable to crawl ; but this 

 seems uncertain. Their appetite is so voracious that a 

 very short fast kills them. Male moles have been 



