CHAPTER XVIII 



SAPPERS AND MINERS 



VAST numbers of the world's quadrupeds are, by pro- 

 fession, sappers and miners. Examples of four-footed 

 beasts which go to earth are to be found everywhere. 

 One cannot take a stroll into the country in any part of 

 Britain without encountering the work of some energetic 

 burrower. 



Of all the dwellers in darkness none is more adept in 

 his work than the mole, none better adapted for the 

 life he leads. Practically devoid of sight, with fore-feet 

 like shovels and highly developed muscles in his fore- 

 arms, a sharply pointed, hard nose, and a fur to which 

 the soil will not adhere, and of such a nature that it 

 cannot be rubbed the wrong way, for the reason that 

 there is no wrong way with the mole's fur, this little 

 miner is made for his job. 



Let us state at once that the familiar mole-hills, so 

 injurious and disfiguring on farm land, are not the sites 

 of the mole's underground dwelling. The animal works 

 near the surface of the soil as a rule, so near that his 

 movements can be followed by watching the tremors of 

 the earth above him, just as one may trace the course 

 of a water animal, without actually seeing it, by the line 

 of ripples on the water. The mole-hills are simply heaps 

 of excavated earth which the little animal throws up to 

 the surface of the ground from time to time. 



The mole fortress is a structure of ample dimensions, 

 far larger than a mole-hill at any rate, and often attaining 

 a diameter of three feet or so. As a rule the animal is 

 at little pains to conceal its habitation, an oversight that 

 often recoils on its own head, for the watchful farmer is 



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