124 



THE INSECT-EATERS. 



The small eyes gleaming like carbuncles can 

 only be seen after the hair in which they are 

 buried has been blown aside. The external 

 ears are absent, and the entrance to the 

 auditor)' passage is protected by stiff hairs. 

 The hind-paws are weak, straight, five-toed; 

 the tail is short; the dentition is allied to 

 that of the carnivores; it consists in all of 



Fig. 54. — The Common Mole \Talpa europcea). page 123. 



44 teeth; three incisors above, four below, 

 which are followed by a strong canine with 

 two roots. The upper canine is particularly 

 sharp, and is pointed and recurved. The 

 single -cusped premolars pass gradually into 

 molars provided with several sharp pointed 

 cusps. The mole lives solitary in its dark 

 chamber, from which as a centre it untiringly 

 digs out winding passages the whole year 

 round, even under the snow. The fortress 

 is constructed at a suitable depth at some 

 distance from the hunting-ground, mosdy 

 under the roots of a thick tree, and is con- 

 nected by a main gallery with the hunting- 

 passages. This fortress is a perfect work 



of art in its way. Two circular galleries, 

 having numerous connections with each other 

 and with the parts beyond, surround a bottle- 

 shaped chamber, which is made warm with 

 the stems of grass and with dry mosses. 

 The hunting- passages are carried to great 

 distances, and are indicated in places by the 

 heaps of earth thrown up, the well-known 

 molehills. The mole extends these passages 

 two or three times a day in search for prey, 

 and afterwards retires to its fortress. At the 

 breeding season the male shuts up the female, 

 whom he has acquired by force, in a nest 

 situated at some little distance from his for- 

 tress, and there she brings into the world from 

 four to eight blind young ones, which she is 

 often compelled to defend against the male. 



That the character which seems to be indicated 

 by this last fact is not universally applicable to 

 the mole there is good reason to think. " It 

 would appear that the affection of the male for his 

 mate continues to be of a very warm kind, at least 

 M. Le Court states that he several times found a 

 female caught in a trap with the male lying dead 

 beside her. The possession of strong family affec- 

 tions by the mole would seem further to be proved 

 by an observation communicated to M. Le Court, 

 according to which, when the mole's nest is in- 

 vaded by a sudden flood, both parents may be 

 seen struggling bravely, and risking their own lives 

 to save their young, and mutually assisting and 

 protecting each other while thus engaged." — W. S. 

 Dallas in Cassell's Nat. Hist., order Insectivora. 



Nevertheless it must be admitted that other 

 accounts show that the instances just quoted are 

 quite compatible with the occasional manifestation 

 of an extraordinary ferocity of disposition such as 

 that indicated in the text. When urged by hunger 

 the mole would seem to be capable of almost any- 

 thing to allay its pangs, of the fierceness of which 

 M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire speaks in remarkably en- 

 ergetic terms. "The mole," he says, "does not 

 suffer from hunger like all other animals. In it 

 this appetite is heightened. It is an exhaustion 

 felt even to frenzy. The animal exhibits a violent 

 agitation ; it is animated with fury when it darts 

 on its prey; its gluttony disorders all its faculties; 

 nothing is allowed to stand in the way in its efforts 

 to assuage its hunger; it abandons itself to its 



