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 



