520 COMMON MOLE. 
are said to be seen swimming in great numbers, 
and using every effort to obtain a more elevated 
situation ; but a great many of them perish on 
such occasions, as well as the young, which re- 
main in their holes. 
A remarkable instance of the power which the 
Mole sometimes exerts in swimming, is given in 
the third volume of the Transactions of the Lin- 
naean Society, one having l^een seen swimming 
towards a small island in the middle of the Loch 
of Clunie, in Scotland, at the distance of 180 yards 
from land. 
Linnaeus, in the twelfth edition of the Systema 
Naturae, affirms that the Mole hybernates^ or 
passes the winter in a state of torpidity; and the 
same observation is repeated in the Gmelinian 
edition of that M^ork. Tliis^ however, is flatly 
contradicted by the Count de Buffon, who ob- 
serves, that the Mole sleeps so little in winter, 
that she raises the earth in the same manner as 
in summer; and that the country people remark 
that the thaw approaches, because the moles make 
their hills. They endeavour to get into warm 
grounds^ gardens, &c. during this season more 
than at others. 
This animal is said to be unknown in Ireland. 
In Siberia it arrives at a larger size than in 
Europe. The fur is so soft and beautiful, that it 
would make the most elegant articles of dress, did 
not the difficulty of curing and dressing the skin 
deter from experiments of this nature. 
