508 MAMMALIA. 



After well considering the pros and cons of the question, we 

 may be led to see that the amount of good is greater than the 

 evil, and that the Mole ought to be classed in the category of 

 animals which, if not useful, are at least inoffensive. 



It is necessary to say, however, that this opinion is far 

 from being generally accepted, for Moles are pursued a outrance. 

 There are men who specially devote themselves to their de- 

 struction. The Mole-catcher has at his fingers' ends the 

 habits of his game. With experience he follows it through 

 its galleries; he knows that such a hillock, higher than the 

 others, covers its nest, and that such another overhangs its seat. 

 If exercising his vocation he arrives early in the morning, at the 

 time when his prey is hard at work ; he keeps its movements in 

 view, and whenever he chances to see the soil upheaving, he 

 excavates rapidly with a spade behind the animal, so as to cut off 

 its retreat. He then digs down, and is sure to find the animal in 

 the Mole-hin in process of formation. 



For difficult occasions, the Mole-catcher has traps of various 

 kinds, which he places in the most recently-made galleries. 



The trap most used is that of Delafaille (Fig. 222, a a') . It 

 consists of a hollow wooden cj'linder, from ten to twelve inches 

 long, and of a diameter nearly equal to that of the Mole galleries. 

 At each extremity is a valve which opens from without to within, 

 but not from within to without. It will be understood what 

 ha23pens when the trap is placed in one of the runs. 



The Mole, anxious to repair the damage done to its thorough- 

 fare, approaches the tube, pushes through the valve ; this closes, 

 and it is a prisoner. The inventor of this trap has still further 

 improved it by a thin stalk placed vertically in the tube, and 

 terminating externally in a piece of paper. The Mole, excited 

 by the noise of the agitation of the paper, which it thinks 

 caused by some prey, rushes at it, and in doing so raises up the 

 valve. 



Two other arrangements of Mole-trap are shown in Fig. 222, 

 n c. These are a kind of Mouse-trap, which is placed, not in 

 the interior of galleries, like that of Delafaille, but outside, on 

 the Mole-hill. 



The time preferred to destroy Moles is that at which the young 

 are about to be brought forth. As soon as a nest is recognised, 



