109 



XIX. 

 THE MOLE AT HOME. 



HERE in the barton of Colway Farm I have just come 

 across the farmer's museum a barndoor with dead 

 weasels nailed against it for a warning to evil-doers ; 

 which museum also contains the warped skins of no 

 fewer than eleven indigenous British mammals, including 

 bats, shrews, water-rats, moles, and harvest-mice. As I 

 stand by the barndoor examining the dried and withered 

 skins at leisure, young Tom Wootton comes up with a 

 basket of something or other on his arm. ' What 'ast 

 got there, Tom ? ' I ask him, in our native West Saxon 

 tongue ; and Tom, with a broad grin on his face at the 

 question, answers, ' Wunts, zur, wunts to hang up along- 

 zide o' they others.' Perhaps it may be necessary to 

 inform the untutored dwellers in cities that wunt or wont 

 is the good old English name of those underground 

 animals which we nowadays chiefly know as moles. 

 Tom is wunt-catcher by appointment to the farm, and 

 he has just made a capture of half a dozen from the 

 troublesome runs in the Home Fields. I take one of 

 the poor things out cautiously by its short stumpy tail, 

 and examine it all round with a critical eye. 



It is a curious creature, to be sure, this mole, and 



