ANIMALS UNDERGROUND 229 



ditions. It might well be that the measure of this 

 success decreased in proportion to the completeness 

 with which the different species have adopted the 

 underground habit and abandoned light and air. But 

 in normal conditions this is not the case. The fox, 

 whom we take to be the last of English mammals to 

 become a burrower and dweller in holes largely owing 

 to the increase of fox-hunting and multiplication of 

 packs of hounds is an animal which spends as little 

 time there as it can help, and has never ceased to suffer 

 in health from the change. The earths become tainted, 

 the foxes contract mange, and the spread of this fatal 

 disease has increased yearly as the animals have become 

 more subterranean, and, by taking their food into the 

 earths, have converted them into larders as well as 

 sleeping-places. How most of the burrowing animals 

 find life endurable at all is difficult to discover. No 

 one who has seen the colliers coming for their lamps 

 and about to descend into the pit can have failed to 

 note the marks of physical strain exhibited by all, from 

 old men to boys. As each man or lad comes up and 

 shouts the number of his lamp, the harsh, loud voices, 

 the over- wrought lines of the face, and the general air 

 of tension show that, however well satisfied the pitman 

 is with his calling, he at least is not yet adapted to the 

 underground life. But burrowing animals are among 

 the merriest of the merry ; there are few creatures 



