THE COMMON MOLE, MOLDWARP OR WANT 39 



Mr J. E. Harting has seen an entry of the wages paid to 

 men who spread molehills in England in 1480.^ On the 

 other hand, the late Robert Service stated ^ that mole-catching 

 as a regular trade did not begin in South Scotland until 1797. 

 A minute investigation of the history of mole-catching is here 

 impossible, but reference may be made to Macpherson's work 

 for an account of it in Lakeland, where the practice was 

 certainly in vogue in 16 12. The animal was hunted down either 

 privately, or in some cases by the residents of a locality club- 

 bing together. The mole-catcher was often employed by the 

 parish, so that the amounts which he received appear in 

 the churchwardens' accounts of most parishes for the seven- 

 teenth century. Generally a penny a head was paid, but at 

 Harrold (Bedfordshire) the mole-catcher's remuneration was 

 £2 a year.® It appears that a mole-catcher was still paid by 

 the Cambridgeshire parish of Dry Drayton in 1880,* but Mr 

 Adams remarks, not without reason, that the whole race would 

 have long since vanished, with the objects of their pursuit, had 

 they directed their attention to the destruction of the young 

 in their nests instead of confining themselves to trapping the 

 adults. 



So strong is opinion against the Mole, that the humble pro- 

 fession of mole-catcher has become celebrated ; and the followers 

 of this calling are said to earn a considerable income in a 

 season at a trifling sum for each animal captured. One 

 trapper named Jackson, with whom Bell was in communication, 

 declared that he had destroyed from 40,000 to 50,000 moles 

 in thirty-five years. Jonathan Couch informed Bell of another 

 who in Cornwall took no less than 1200 of these animals 

 in six winter months ; while, according to Dr Laver, the two 

 brothers Watchem (or Watsham) have secured no less than 

 1500 fresh skins in a single season at Colchester. But all 

 others must yield to le Court, who in the short space of 

 five months accounted for no less than 6000 moles within a 

 comparatively small district ; and two of his pupils, during the 

 month that they were under his instructions, killed 971. 



1 Zoologist, 1887, 445. ^ Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist, 1896, 202. 



' J. Steele Elliott, Zoologist, 1906, 254. 



< Rev. F. A. Walker, V>.T)., Journ. cit., 1891, 392. 



