74 



FARM VERML\\ HELPFUL AND HURFFUL, 



cover in the thick bottom grass and procures most 

 (probably nearly all) of its food above ground. Anyone 

 ^yho will go out before sunrise on a summer's morning, 

 or take a candle and walk over the lawn on a dewy 

 night, will see at once what a feast of large, fat worms, 

 the mole finds spread out for him without the trouble 

 of moving an inch of earth. It is just because the worms, 

 in mild weather at the end of winter and in the early 

 spring, come up near the surface of the ground, that the 

 moles make such a disturbance with their surface runs and 

 hillocks at that season. The main runs leading from the 

 mole's abode in a hedge-bank, and those going down to 

 some convenient drinking-place, are generally at some little 

 depth below the surface. Experienced trappers always look 

 out for these runs. 



The foregoing remarks upon the mole's farming operations 

 are more especially applicable to grass land. Of its effect 

 on arable land it is more difficult to speak. For one thing, 

 I think it may safely be said that the mole prefers to work 

 in grass fields — it may be because the worm, being there 

 undisturbed by man's tillage, and on that account less 

 exposed to the attacks of its surface-feeding enemies than 

 in those (for instance) which are turned-up once a year in 

 sight of the hungry rook or seagull, abounds more under the 

 turf ; and, therefore, that such situations afford the mole a 

 field of operations in which he can more readily assuage his 

 exacting appetite. Be this as it may, the mole can well be 

 allowed a free hand until well on into the spring on land in 

 preparation for barley ; and perhaps it is only among winter 

 wheat, spring corn other than barley, and possibly in clover 

 leas that it is likely to do any damage. In fields carrying 

 these crops it is certainly sufficiently annoying to see the 

 surface runs and hillocks in all directions — plants being 

 uprooted by the surface runs or covered up by the hillocks. 

 But by the time wheat has been hoed, the mole's great 



