OBSERVATIONS ON THE MOLE. 221 
of any neck. The tail is about an inch long, and covered 
also with down. It is observed, of almost all animals, that 
the colours of the belly, or that side of the animal which is 
usually towards the ground, or shaded most from the light, 
are of the faintest hue. In the mole, this distinction is, I 
think, less observable than I have noticed it to be in any 
other. Its belly is very little, if at all, lighter than its back. 
This may be owing to its being almost all equally exposed 
to the light, or rather all equally excluded from it. The 
male is considerably larger than the female. They couple 
in the month of March, and the female brings forth in 
May. She produces usually six or seven at a litter. On 
some occasions they seem to breed twice in the ye^l*. Mr 
Fletcher has seen young moles in September, but this, he 
says, is rare. The new-born moles are quite naked and red. 
The males often engage in fierce combat with one an- 
other, particularly in the spring season. Mr Fletcher 
has witnessed this, and seen them sei^e one another with 
their teeth, and push and scratch violently with their 
claws, till both were much torn. He observed another 
Curious fact lately, in the Duke of Buccleuch's Park, at 
Dalkeith. He found a male mole caught in one of his 
traps, and the entrails of it torn out, apparently by another 
mole. A few minutes after, he observed a mole moving 
along the track, or run towards the trap, and killed it with 
his foot. On taking it up, he found it to be a female. The 
«ame day, and near the same place, he found another male 
caught, and in the same state as before described ; and he 
killed another female in the same way coming towards it. 
Had these affectionate and disconsolate wives thus torn 
their husbands in endeavouring to extricate them from 
their disastrous situation? Or are we to suppose them 
actuated by a different sentiment, — full of anger at tlieir 
silly mates for being so stupid as thus to fall into the snnre ? 
