Getting Ready 1 3 



marks the spot where a trap has been set. Numbers 

 are caught (their death, let me say, is almost instant- 

 aneous, for their lives seem to be always hanging 

 by a very slender thread which can be broken by the 

 slightest tap with a stick) ; but this seems to make 

 little difference, and every morning shows a fresh 

 eruption. Mark Pattison, who was fond of puzzling 

 people, once told me that he had " posed " a distin- 

 guished man of science by asking him why the moles 

 in our vast Oxford water-meadows are not each 

 winter destroyed by the floods. Certain it is that, in 

 spite of the worst deluges we ever suffer there, the 

 moles are on the spot again as soon as ever the water 

 has cleared away. Ever since then I have kept an 

 eye on the mole -heaps, and in fact have often 

 wandered up and down these valleys, noticing their 

 lie and order in the meadows ; and find that these 

 wary creatures do not often trust themselves out of 

 reach of all means of retreat to higher ground. They 

 live for the most part in those pleasant gently- 

 sloping fields that lie just above the flat alluvial 

 meadows ; and here or in the adjoining hedgerows 

 you find their winter homes — huge mounds with a 

 convenient series of passages, and with a warm nest 

 of cut grass in a large chamber deep down in the 

 centre. Hence they issue forth on hunting expedi- 

 tions after worms in the water-meadows ; for worms 

 and water are their two chief wants. Once or twice 



