THE MOLE AT HOME. 113 



a subterranean creature, and so it has become practically 

 all but obsolete, being quite buried beneath the skin. 

 In all probability it is only sensitive to the presence or 

 absence of light, not to definite forms and colours. Like 

 most other miners, he dearly loves a fight, for which 

 purpose he meets his rival above-ground by night, and 

 does battle with a fierceness and pugnacity that are 

 truly astonishing. 



The mole has a certain number of regular paths, 

 along which he makes his way rapidly and noiselessly 

 through his hunting-grounds, catching all the stray 

 worms that chance to be passing on the way ; for, after 

 a burrow is once made, it remains open all that season 

 as a sort of permanent pitfall, intersecting many worm- 

 tunnels. During winter, or at least in times of frost, he 

 retires to what is called his fortress, containing a circular 

 nest, with one or two irregular galleries for escape, in 

 case he is attacked by man or carnivores. The very 

 symmetrical ground-plan of these fortresses, however, 

 which has been copied over and over again in popular 

 books from a sketch by an imaginative French naturalist, 

 seems to me ridiculously overdone in the matter of 

 systematic completeness. The real fortress is compara- 

 tively a very simple matter I have seen Tom open 

 dozens of them and has only a few quite casual-looking 

 passages instead of the complicated circular galleries 

 with equidistant exits and five internal communications 

 shown in the well-known picture. While the frost lasts 

 the hungry animal lies coiled up dormant in this hiber- 

 nating chamber ; but the moment a thaw sets in, and 

 the worms can get about once more, he is out at once, 

 and you can track his path everywhere through the 



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