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ON THE NAMES GIVEN TO THE MOLE. 

 By Prof. Herbert A. Strong, M.A., LL.D. 



The Latin talpa for stalpa, and the Greek acr7r«Aa| or T9raA«|, 

 both come from the root " scalp" and signify the " digger." The 

 Latin shows st as against the Greek sp, cp. studium with oTreudu ; 

 and for the disappearance of the s. cp. cutis with scutum. 



The Italians received the word talpa and employed it to 

 signify " a mole," but altered the word into topo to signify 

 equally a rat or a mouse — an instance, as it seems to me, of 

 their lack of observation of animal nature. They seem to have 

 given the name of topo to the mysterious animals which came to 

 them from the East in the third or fourth centuries, which 

 received the name of hratte, our rat, from the Slavish name for 

 mole, krot. It seems likely, from the fact that the Low German 

 form ratte is more commonly used in German than the H. German 

 form ratze, that the incursion of rodents may have skirted the 

 Baltic and passed through Low German countries. The Bussians, 

 however, evolved another word for rat, krysa, and retained the 

 old Aryan word for mouse under the form muish. The French 

 discarded this root, and employed souris, from soricem. The 

 Bomansch of Dissentis retains the form mur. 



Beverting to the Mole, the old Germans called it " earth- 

 thrower," mold-wurf, Icelandic mold-varpa, which popular ety- 

 mology soon turned into " maul-wurf," or " mouth-thrower." 

 The Scotcn form " moudie-wort" is well known. Palmer quotes 

 Topsell's 'Historie of Foure-footed Beasts' (1608), p. 500, "With 

 her feete she diggeth, and with her nose casteth awaye the earth, 

 and therefore such earth is called in Germany mal-werff and in 

 England molehill." In the west of England the word for mole 

 is " want," which comes apparently from the same root as the 

 modern German wenden, to turn, from the tortuous passages it 

 makes beneath the earth. 



Dr. Meyer, the Celtic scholar (my colleague), informs me that 

 in the Celtic languages we find a variety of words for mole, but 

 there is no one common Celtic term. The Brythonic branch has 

 indeed one word common to all the languages which it embraces, 

 viz. gwadd in Welsh, goz in Breton, gwdd (or ddaor) in Cornish. 

 But Edward Lloyd (1707) gives besides for Welsh, twrch daear, 



