THE MOLE AT HOME. in 



undergone modification in many small points of some 

 importance, so as closely to adapt it to its existing mode 

 of life. The insectivores, qua insectivore, are intensely 

 primitive, but each one of them, qua mole, or water-shrew, 

 or hedgehog, is a very specialised kind of insectivore 

 indeed. This mole here, for example, has a pair of 

 naked, flat, and powerful forepaws, turned curiously 

 outward, for shovelling out the earth from his tunnels ; 

 they look singularly like the human hand, and are wholly 

 different from the webbed fingers of the oared shrew, or 

 the simple flat feet of the hedgehog. Ages and ages 

 ago the ancestors of the mole took to burrowing in the 

 ground for a livelihood, and all their structure has long 

 since been accommodated by use and wont or by natural 

 selection to their peculiar habits. It is easy enough to 

 see, indeed, how a burrowing insectivore might readily 

 acquire the special mode of life now so deeply ingrained 

 in the race of moles. At first, no doubt, it would take 

 to digging a hole in the earth simply for protection, like 

 rabbits and mice ; but, as it must thus necessarily come 

 across the long tunnels and nests of Mr. Darwin's friends 

 the earthworms, it would naturally eat these congenial 

 morsels of food, which a herbivore like the rabbit could 

 not touch. A certain number of such original undifferen- 

 tiated ancestors of the mole would be sure to find an 

 easier living by hunting the worms underground than 

 by looking for beetles and slugs on the surface, like the 

 hedgehogs, especially if they happened to be of a power- 

 ful muscular build. The habit of digging rapidly through 

 the ground would increase their strength from generation 

 to generation ; and natural selection would co-operate 

 with habit by weeding out all those individuals whose 



