MOLES' SKINS FOR FURS 261 



for the ruffian to reload. He knocked up the barrel, 

 and caught his man, who in due time was sentenced 

 to nine months' imprisonment. Had his gun been 

 double-barrelled, it would have been another story, 

 and a tragic one. A favourite weapon, and a deadly, 

 in these poachers' hands is a heavy stone slung in a 

 stocking. 



For moles' skins the keeper has no sentiment. He 



will not part with his skins of rare birds but will 



willingly barter the prospect of wearing a 



Moles' moles' skin waistcoat for the price of an ounce 

 Skins for , , . ^ . , . , , , 



Furs * sna a skin. By catching moles he pleases 



the farmers, who know no more than he 

 himself about any good work that moles do : he 

 frees his rides from unsightly heaps and raised 

 tunnellings ; and now and then his mole-traps catch a 

 weasel. Many keepers make a fair sum of money 

 each year by selling moles' skins ; furriers will as 

 readily give twopence for a skin as others threepence or 

 sixpence. The skins, cut close round the head, are 

 drawn from the moles' bodies as a man draws stock- 

 ings from his legs ; they are pegged out, fur down- 

 wards, on a board, to be dried and powdered with 

 alum, then are stuffed with meadow hay, and packed 

 by scores or hundreds. Perhaps no fur is quite so 

 soft and beautiful as the mole's ; and the keeper 

 is always well pleased to note how well the pelts of his 

 enemies become women-folk's faces. 



