43 



QUADRUPEDS. 



FIG. 477. MOLE. 



ing up the earth and casting it backwards, as the creature burrows through 

 the soil, an operation in which it is assisted by its long pointed head and move- 

 able snout. The hinder legs are very feeble, and the animal's movements upon 



the ground are as imbecile as they are 

 efficient underneath it. Its hearing is 

 very acute, but the eyes are so small, 

 and so covered by the skin, that their 

 very existence might be denied by a 

 superficial observer. The fur of the 

 mole is very peculiar: the hairs, instead 

 of projecting from the skin obliquely 

 backwards, as in most animals, grow 

 perpendicularly from the surface, so 

 that, like the pile of velvet, they will lie 

 with equal smoothness in any direction, 



thereby enabling the animal to retreat with facility through the narrow pas- 

 sages of its subterranean burrows. 



ORDER CHEIROPTERA.* 



The mammiferous destroyers of insects are by no means re- 

 stricted to the surface of the ground, or limited by their structure 

 to the pursuit of a few beetles or grovelling larvae. Many, fur- 

 nished with wings of strange conformation, are permitted to wage 



* x 'P> cheir, the hand; TTTep6i>, pteron, a -wing: hand-winged. 



