84 



QUADRUPEDS. 



six, or even nine hills of earth, according to its age. Con- 

 sequently all the hills formed by any one mole commmiicate 

 with one another by subterraneous passages. The mole 

 much dreads the access of external air ; and, if the tunnel 

 or passage be opened, the animal will immediately come to 

 the aperture, and construct an arch of loose mould over the 

 hole, which it repeats if the hole be again broken open. On 

 these two facts, the art of mole-catching is founded. 



The mole is injurious to the farmer by raising heaps of 

 earth on meadows and pastures, which destroy the grass 

 below and around them, and in making tunnels or vacancies 

 among and below the roots of green crops. Mole-hills also 

 very much obstruct the scythe in mowing. On pasture 

 lands, the hills must be spread thinly about by means of a 

 hght hand-spade ; and on arable lands, and on mowed 

 grounds, the animals should be destroyed. This purpose is 

 effected by placing traps in the tunnels or passages, of the 

 size and shape of the ruts, and sufficient to admit the body 

 of the mole. A bait is placed in the trap, and secured by a 

 string, which reaches upwards to the point of a curved rod 

 fixed in the ground by the other end. The animal, in eating 

 the bait, gnaws the cord, and, the bended rod being released, 

 springs upwards, and carries with it the trap and the mole 

 in it, suspended and strangled by the waist, by means 

 of another cord which is fastened to the bended rod. The 

 best time of the year for destroying moles is in the spring, 

 when they move to the fields from the winter abodes on the 

 sides of ditches, and from hedge banks. 



Several practical w^riters have disputed if the mole be 

 injurious to cultivation, reckoning the animal to be the 

 destroyer of noxious insects, and to form a fine top-dressing, 

 in the earth of the hills being spread over the pasture 

 ground. But the wire-worm works so very rapidly, that 

 no common number of slow-moving moles could arrest its 

 progress; and the other hurtful insects are very much 

 beyond the reach of the moles. On mowed grounds of all 

 kinds the hills are very minous to the scythe ; and they are 

 often formed after the tall grass prevents their being seen 



