

XXXI. ANIMALS UNDERGROUND 



AN interesting find of buried treasure has recently been 

 credited to a mole. Coins were seen shining in the 

 earth of a freshly cast-up mole-hill at Penicuick, near 

 Edinburgh, and a search showed that the mole had 

 driven his gallery through a hoard of ancient coins of 

 the date of Edward I. 



Men of all countries seem agreed in regarding the 

 work of animals underground as something quite normal 

 and commonplace. Perhaps the best instance of this 

 was the view long held by the Ostiaks of North Siberia 

 that the mammoths whose bodies and bones they found 

 embedded in the frozen soil were * only ' gigantic moles 

 which worked deep down below ground, but were 

 unlucky enough to come too near the top, and so were 

 frozen ! The facts are, however, in very strong con- 

 tradiction to this view of the subterranean life of 

 animals. Life underground and in the dark is abso- 

 lutely contrary to the normal habits, tastes, and struc- 

 ture of almost all animals except the very few, like the 



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