MOLE AND HEDGEHOG. 



73 



spread by the action of rain and frosts, would in time 

 cover the herbage ; these castings are really a kind of top- 

 dressing. The mole does much the same thing in another 

 way. In the course of making its runs it throws up the 

 loose soil on to the surface in the form of mole-hills, 

 which, when spread over the ground, cannot fail to act 

 in some degree as a top-dressing. I have often noticed 

 in spring just as the grass was beginning to move, that it 

 has sprouted perceptibly earlier and stronger in places 

 where some mole-hills had recently been spread, and also 

 round the bases of some still standing where a small 

 portion of the fine loose soil had slipped down and spread 

 out at the foot. It is true that mole-hills have to be spread 

 whether we like it or not, because they would if undis- 

 turbed, when of any size, become hard and in time covered 

 w4th vegetation, and in that state be almost as much a 

 nuisance as ant-hills, but the spreading is not usually a 

 heavy matter. 



It is not as if the hills were thrown up to the same 

 extent at all seasons of the year. On the contrary, the 

 chief period of activity on the part of the mole is during 

 part of the winter and the spring. It is then that by far 

 the greater proportion of the mole-hills are thrown up, and 

 if the mounds are spread just before the fields are shut up 

 for hay it will be found that few more will appear. 

 It may be added that it is just at this season that a little 

 fine soil spread over the surface will benefit grass land. 

 Chain and brush harrowing, too, at that season make it 

 more easy to smooth down the traces of the mole's bene- 

 ficial activity. 



In summer the mole works, I believe, to a very large 

 extent upon the surface, and the large mounds which it 

 erects over its breeding-places are usually situated in 

 some out-of-the-way place, such as a hedge-bank or the 

 foot of a tree. At that season the mole finds sufficient 



