Miners, Diggers, and Carpenters. 



turn by devouring vast quantities of wire-worms, leather- 

 jackets, and other noxious, root-devouring insects; and 

 as it is apparently strictly carnivorous in its diet, it prob- 

 ably does far more good than is generally imagined. 



Although a very expert miner, in the light of recent 

 careful investigation it would appear that the Mole does 

 not excavate the extraordinarily complicated home be- 

 neath the surface of its hillock with which it has been 

 credited by many writers in the past. According to 

 Mr. Lionel E. Adams, who recently communicated to 

 the Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical 

 Society the result of his investigations, carried on over 

 a period of four years, on the Mole and its fortress, not 

 one of three hundred hillocks examined by him cor- 

 responded with that ancient and remarkable drawing 

 of the interior of a molehill that has done duty as an 

 illustration in countless popular works. 



The Mole sinks a short shaft below the surface of 

 the ground, at the bottom of which it excavates a more 

 or less globular-shaped chamber, pushing the earth out 

 through the top of the shaft, so that it gradually accumu- 

 lates in a mound. " When," states Mr. Adams, " this 

 superincumbent earth has reached an inconvenient 

 height another tunnel is made, sometimes from another 

 part of the nest cavity, but more often sideways from 

 the first upward tunnel. All this takes time, and the 

 Mole meanwhile makes fresh runs from the fortress, 

 the seat of its labours, in various directions in search of 

 food. Much of the earth displaced in making these 

 fresh runs falls into the nest cavity, and has to be dis- 

 posed of in the same way as before. Now the tunnel 

 (or tunnels) leading upwards from the nest cavity 



169 



