By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



311 



The posterior limbs are. very slender, and the feet plantigrade, but 

 the fore limbs have little resemblance in shape to the hind ones, and 

 are but awkward instruments for walking, yet for the important 

 function of tunnelling most admirably adapted. Mark again the 

 short thick velvet-like fur, so impervious to wet, with which it is 

 clothed ; its extraordinary development of the sense of smell, to 

 which it is principally indebted for the discovery of its food ; and 

 the acute powers of hearing which it possesses ; and say, is it not 

 admirably adapted to the burrowing life it leads? And here in 

 passing let me observe that the species of mole with which we are 

 acquainted, is not blind, as is popularly supposed ; for, though for 

 the most part but little employed, and within eyelids which are open 

 only to a very small extent, it is furnished with very small, bright, 

 black, and deeply-set bead-like eyes. There is however, a really 

 sightless mole, called Talpa coeca, which exists in Southern Europe, 

 with which our British species has doubtless been sometimes con- 

 founded, and hence the mistaken belief, shared by Shakspeare and 

 many other authors of note, and generally entertained to this day, 

 of the positive blindness of our British mole. 



Thus equipped then for the battle of life, and thus furnished with 

 the most powerful appliances for its nurpose, the mole traverses the 

 earth many inches below the surface, in search of the worms, grubs, 

 insects and other animals which form its prey. Voracious beyond 

 all other creatures, this little glutton can only appease its almost 

 insatiable appetite by consuming such a quantity of food as is out 

 of all proportion to its own bulk. But unlike other hearty feeders, 

 the most excessive meal does not satisfy it for long. After but a 

 very few hours of the most profound sleep, it awakes with recovered 

 appetite to hunt for a farther supply, and so it passes no small 

 portion of its existence, in greedily devouring its prey, or in the 

 deepest slumber, for the mole is no lukewarm nonchalant idler, but 

 an earnest determined animal, doing nothing by halves, but throwing 

 itself with a zeal which is quite extraordinary into the occupation of 

 the moment ; so that it has been styled, without any exaggeration, 

 at once the most voracious and the most ferocious, as well as the 

 boldest and the fiercest of animals of its size. That it should drink 



