THE MOLE. 443 



different words, but rather to touch briefly upon such traits in the 

 life-history of the Mole as have been either overlooked by Bell, 

 or have at least received but inadequate treatment. 



To deal first with its distribution in the British Islands, 

 it may be observed that in England it is too well known to 

 render necessary any enumeration of counties in which it may 

 be found ; it becomes scarcer, however, as we proceed northward, 

 being considered rare in the north of Scotland ; while it is 

 absent from the Western Islands, and unknown also in Ireland. 



Writing in 1874, Bell observes (pp. 137, 138), " The Mole is 

 not found in the northern extremity of Scotland, nor in the 

 islands of Orkney and Zetland " (sic). The late Edward Alston, 

 however, in his notes on the ' Fauna of Scotland,' published in 

 1880, remarks (p. 9), that the Mole has greatly extended its 

 range of late years, and is now well known throughout the main- 

 land to Sutherlandshire and Caithness. 



In Sutherland, in 1843, it was very rare in the parish of Dur- 

 ness, and only to be met with on the western side of Loch Hope 

 (' Old Statistical Account,' p. 88.) In Assynt it is now quite plen- 

 tiful in low-lying ground and valleys where the surface is cultivated. 

 In some of the pastures great numbers of old mole-hills may be 

 seen overgrown with grass, making the whole surface of the 

 fields rough and uneven. In Sutherlandshire this animal is 

 never found at any considerable elevation, a fact which must be 

 attributed to the nature of the soil, or rather to the want of soil 

 on the hill sides, for in other localities the Mole ascends moun- 

 tains to a great height.* 



The Irish naturalist, Thompson, observed burrows of the 

 Mole at Aberarder, about sixteen miles from Inverness ; and the 

 late Thomas Edward, of Banff, asserted that, although it used to 

 be very rare in Banffshire, it has of late years become more 

 numerous there. During the past autumn, while staying in 

 Elginshire (near Carron), I came upon a Mole one day, travelling 

 above ground on the edge of a turnip field, close to a plantation, 



=■= Alston & Harvie Brown, "On the Mammals of Sutherlandshire," Proc. 

 Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, 1875. In the winter of 1863 newly made casts of 

 the Mole were observed on the top of Ingleborough, which is the highest hiU 

 bnt one in Yorkshhe. Zool. 1872, p. 3183. Mr. Cordeaux also has noticed 

 the presence of Moles on the highest point of the Lincolnshire North Wolds, 

 Zool. 1868, p. 1186. 



