THE STRENUOUS MOLE 227 
his needle-like teeth are deep in your flesh, you will 
be glad to drop him. 
He is not, when caught, a submissive creature, 
nor has he a friendly or social disposition: in the 
rutting season the moles have the most savage 
battles; the floors and walls of the tunnels are 
washed with blood, and he that falls is worried to 
death, and his corpse devoured by the victor. 
But the mole is seldom seen out of doors, so 
to speak, taking his walks abroad; when he is 
striking out in shallow runs in hot pursuit of 
earthworms and throwing up little hills at short 
intervals you can often see him when he comes to 
the surface; he just shows you his back for a 
few moments; then, having pushed up the loose 
soil, sinks below again. Now it once happened 
that a mole showing himself, or his back, to me in 
this way, taught me something about the creature 
which I did not know, not having found it in the 
books. It was on a bright March morning, and I 
was seated on a stump in a beech wood near the 
village of Ockley, in Surrey. The ground all 
about me was covered with a deep carpet of dead 
leaves, glowing gold and red and russet in the 
sunlight, when presently, attracted by a rustling 
among the leaves, I saw that they were being 
thrust up by some creature under them. It was 
not the small animal I was listening and watching 
for just then—the shrew who comes out to sun 
himself—but a mole throwing up a hill at that 
spot within a yard of my foot. By and by his 
