THE MOLE. 
105 
j| pastures in the spring a very unsightly appearance, and 
in grounds designed to be mowed, occasion much 
trouble, by obliging us frequently to spread and remove 
them; and in newly-sown corn-lands, they disturb by 
their runnings the earth at the roots of the grain. But, 
perhaps, these trifling complaints, these almost imagi- 
nary grievances, are the only evils that can be attribut- 
ed to them. In those wild creatures that are not imme- 
diately applicable to our use or amusement, we are 
more generally inclined to seek out their bad than their 
good qualities ; and though I cannot produce any in- 
stance in which the utility of the mole is manifested, 
yet it is reasonable to conclude, that they are eminently 
so, either directly or collaterally, nature having pro- 
vided in an especial manner for a constant supply,* and 
their increase is prodigious when they are not molested. 
I have killed for two years in succession, between forty 
and fifty each season, in a very few acres of ground ; 
and notwithstanding all our stratagems for their destruc- 
tion, and the ease with which they are entrapped, still 
plenty always remain to recruit our annual waste of 
them. These creatures are supposed to have a very im- 
perfect vision, and, like insects, have not any external 
ear, or manifest organ through which sounds can be 
received ; yet we can in no way for a moment suppose 
that they have, been created with any deficiency of 
power to accomplish all the objects of their being, but 
that every possible exigency has been provided for. 
Perceptions may be conveyed in very many instances 
by intelligences unknown to us, and unquestionably are 
so. The defect of one power is frequently supplied by 
the increased activity of another; and the sense of 
smelling in the mole must be unusually acute, to en- 
able it to pursue and capture its prey with the facility 
that it does. Its sole food, we believe, is worms ; and 
these sensitive creatures retire immediately upon the 
smallest moving of the earth in which they reside. 
Now, as it follows them through all their meanderings, 
in which neither eyes nor ears would assist it, a fine 
* See Ray’s Synopsis. 
