MOLE'S FDR. 35 



their victims on branches, mostly of the willow or 

 similar trees ; but their object I could never make 

 out, nor could they give me any reason, except that 

 it was the custom. 



"When a mole is taken out of the ground, very little 

 earth clings to it. There is always some on its great 

 digging claws ; but very little indeed on its fur, which 

 is beautifully formed to prevent such accumulation. 

 The fur of most animals " sets " in some definite di- 

 rection, according to its position on the body ; but 

 that of the mole has no particular set, and is fixed 

 almost perpendicularly on the creature's skin, much 

 like the pile of velvet. Indeed the mole's fur has 

 much the feel of silk-velvet ; and so the title of the 

 "Little gentleman in the velvet coat" is justly ap- 

 plied. 



Those small heaps of earth that are so common in 

 the fields, and called mole-hills, are merely the re- 

 sult of the mole's travelling in search of the earth- 

 worms, on which it principally feeds; and in their 

 structure there is nothing remarkable. 



But the great mole-hill, or mole-palace, in which 

 the animal makes its residence, is a very different 

 affair, and complicated in its structure. In it is 

 found a central chamber in which the mole resides ; 

 and round this chamber there run galleries or corridors 

 in a regular series, so as to form a kind of labyrinth, by 

 means of which the creature may make its escape, if 

 threatened with danger. 



