1904 Quadrupeds. 



have sunk deeper down into the soil : it shows the same love of change in moist wea- 

 ther, when the ground is more workable ; and the practice indeed seems a periodical 

 variation of habit, common to it with the shrews (Sorex), which also are inhabitants 

 of burrows, and to all which species it seems essential to health. 



" If not to its mind, the mole repeatedly changes its quarters ; and though shut up 

 in darkness, it reluctantly continues on the northern declivity of a hill, where it has 

 little light and less heat, unless its other advantages are unusually great. Its migra- 

 tion from one district to another exposes it to great danger, as it is slow to escape, and 

 little prepared to defend itself. The opening of a new track is often concealed in a 

 heap of the soil which has been brought up from the interior ; and at times it is firmly 

 blocked up from within, but I have seen it left carelessly open. It is by these en- 

 trances that the weasel, the rat, and the larger vole (Arvicola amphibia) sometimes 

 enter, and are themselves taken in the trap. 



" The run is differently formed in spring, in consequence of a difference of object. 

 Where fields are not large, the hedge is still the selected spot ; on which account its 

 nest is not often discovered. Mr. Bell has given a sketch of the skilful arrangements 

 made for its safety at this time ; but in districts where the hedge is chosen for defence, 

 no other departure from its usual form is made than an enlargement of the space, and 

 a more comfortable lining. Fourteen young ones have been discovered in one nest ; 

 but, though the mole is not a social animal, it is hard to believe that they could have 

 been littered by one mother. 



" The mole may sleep more in winter than in other seasons, but it is not its habit 

 to become torpid at this time. In frost and snow, tine earth is often seen freshly 

 turned up as evidence of its activity ; but, as it is a creature of great voracity, and 

 cannot endure long fasting, like many wild animals of that character, it is not easy to 

 say how its wants are at this time supplied. A dead or living bird, numbed with the 

 cold, is always a welcome morsel ; but its track has not been seen in the snow in pur- 

 suit of it. It perceives the earliest approach of a thaw ; and, after long seclusion, a 

 heap may be seen protruding through the thin covering of snow as evidence of its 

 sensibility to change of temperature : a circumstance more easily understood when we 

 recollect that it is the radiation of heat from the inner parts of the earth which exer- 

 cises the first influence in the change ; and that it is because the air abstracts this 

 heat more rapidly than the earth supplies it, that frost and snow are produced and 

 continued. When, from changes in the atmosphere, this rapid abstraction ceases, the 

 heat below becomes more sensibly felt ; and this is first visible at the surface of the 

 soil. 



" A good supply of drink is essential to the mole's existence ; and its healthy con- 

 dition is marked by a softness and moisture about the snout, where its most perfect 

 organ of sensation is placed. The flexibility of that organ, and its command over it, 

 are indeed exquisite ; but it is not used in the operations of excavation and lifting. 

 This is the work of the feet, neck, and the hinder part of the shoulder; and in these 

 parts the mole is perhaps the strongest quadruped in existence, in proportion to its 

 size. The heaps it throws up are not made simply by lifting ; for the superfluous 

 earth is collected at easy distances, and thrust along, until so much is accumulated as 

 compels it to convey it out of the way, and then its work in tunnelling goes on again. 



" The mole has more enemies than it is supposed to have ; for though its disap- 

 pearance from a district is sometimes due to emigration, there must be other causes at 

 work to account for their extirpation in particular localities. They may destroy each 



