A Plea for the Moles. 



was originally known in Anglo-Saxon England, in Denmark, and 

 Scandinavia (as it is now in Norway and Sweden, under the title 

 Vond), a name too derived from the same habit, being taken from 

 winden, to throw or cast aside ; though possibly it may come from 

 winn-an, to labour, in allusion to the laborious life of mining which 

 this little animal undergoes. However, to proceed with a brief 

 sketch of its formation and habits. 



It is a member of the Insectivorous class of quadrupeds, and I 

 dare say most people, as they contemplate its apparently awkward 

 form, and think of its subterranean existence, regard it with a pity 

 which is by no means akin to love, but much more allied with con- 

 tempt. I shall be very much surprized, if a careful consideration of 

 its life and habits does not raise it in the eyes of all who can admire 

 ingenuity and skill, to somewhat of a level with the hut-building 

 beaver and the cell-constructing hive-bee, creatures which, working 

 before men's eyes, have been happy in attracting general admiration 

 and applause, of which others are no less deserving, though their 

 works may perhaps be for the most part unseen and unknown. 



First let me call attention to the remarkable formation of the 

 mole. Observe the cylindrical shape of the body, so well calculated 

 to facilitate its rapid progress through the subterranean passages 

 which form its only routes of communication between the different 

 parts of its domain : mark the head forming a long cone, the base 

 lost in the shoulders, the apex formed by the front of the jaws. See 

 the elongated pointed gristly snout, or muzzle, so elastic, so flexible 

 and so strong, which sometimes is thought to serve as a boring in- 

 strument, for perforating the earth : the prodigious strength of 

 limb j (indeed in the neck, shoulder, and forearm, it is said to be, in 

 proportion to its size, the strongest quadruped in existence :) the 

 peculiar broadly-expanded flattened feet, or hands, or fins (as I had 

 almost called them) so hard, so short, so broad, so muscular, with 

 the palms or soles turned outwards, and with a sharp inner or under 

 edge ; armed too with the thickest and strongest of nails, the most 

 perfect of implements wherewith to dig, and hoe, and throw back 

 the earth in its excavations. Its limbs indeed present a remarkable 

 instance of the perfection of development in reference to its habits. 



