WILD LIFE 77 



condition of some of them I take it that the fox, like 

 the cat and some other rapacious creatures, mammal 

 and bird, often kills him on sight and only discovers 

 afterwards that he has got a shrew instead of a mouse. 

 The mole is not universal; indeed on many hills 

 no traces of him are to be seen, but he is common 

 nevertheless, and on some of the high South Downs 

 exceedingly abundant. Seeing him so numerous at 

 the very highest points — the summit of Ditchling Hill 

 and the long ridge extending from Ditchling Beacon 

 to Mount Black-cap — the thought came into my 

 mind that the moles were not like the birds and 

 like myself, merely visitors on these heights, but old 

 residents, and that their colonies had doubtless existed 

 for scores and for centuries of years. And yet how 

 could this be, since there is no water ? For we have 

 been taught to beUeve that the mole is a thirsty 

 creature, that he must drink often, or at regular 

 intervals, and drink deeply; and that to satisfy this 

 want he makes runs to the nearest water-course, that 

 when there is no stream or pond near he sinks a 

 well. Here there are no water- courses, and the 

 dew ponds, few and far between, were all dried up 

 during the excessively hot summer of 1899. The 

 mole could not possibly sink a well in that hard 

 chalk. Even human beings cannot do it. The few 

 cottages that exist in this neighbourhood have no 

 wells. The cottagers depend on the rain-water they 

 catch and store, and when this is consumed in summer 



