By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



309 



Lot me in the first place disarm opposition, if I can, to the claims 

 I am about to put forth for the Mole, by declaring that I am not 

 going to pronounce him immaculate, or slur over the injuries he 

 sometimes commits. I have, it is true, ever considered this little 

 quadruped as an animal of great interest; I have always admired 

 his remarkable shape and formation, and his extraordinary instinct : 

 and I have paid considerable attention to his habits, not only in a 

 state of freedom, but also in captivity ; having had especial oppor- 

 tunities of so doing, when an Irish friend and neighbour, to whom 

 the mole was a stranger (for there are no moles in Ireland), by way 

 of making his acquaintance, kept one for many weeks in confinement 

 in a large open pan. But it is not as a blind partizan that I advocate 

 his cause ; but when I have stated plainly and dispassionately both 

 sides of the question, all that may be said against as well as for him, 

 I shall be astonished if the verdict of an unprejudiced public is not 

 in his favour: and I am very sure that if I fail in convincing my 

 readers of his value, it is from the weakness of the advocate who 

 holds the brief, and not from the weakness of the cause. 



There is but one species of mole which inhabits this country, viz,, 

 the Common Mole of Europe (Talpa 1 Europcea) . It was generally 

 known in England, and is to this day familiarly spoken of in 

 Nottinghamshire and some other counties as the " Mouldiwarp : " 

 which is evidently no other than the old Anglo-Saxon "molde-wyrp," 

 from molde, earth or mould, and weorpan, to cast or throw, or rather 

 wyrp, a caster : just as the modern German designation of the same 

 animal is maulwnrf, the latter part from werfen, to throw; and 

 alluding in both cases to the manner in which the fin-like hands 

 warp, or throw off the mould on each side of them. But with us in 

 Wiltshire it is universally known as the " W ant" a term which is 

 often ridiculed as a provincialism, but which I will venture to say is 

 of no less antiquity than Mouldiwarp, and may equally boast an 

 Anglo-Saxon origin, being indeed no other than the name Wand, 

 changing the final letter d into t, after a method not uncommon in 

 this county : and here again we have the term by which the mole 



Talpa, from rvcpXo?, alluding to its supposed blindness. 



