108 OFFENSIVE ODOR OF THE MOLE. 
appropriate manner; to discharge the superabundant 
heat, and keep the body temperate in some cases: in 
others, again, to retard perspiration, and thus augment 
the warmth, by every possible gradation, or to increase 
the sensibility and perceptions of the animal. Many 
instances of these effects and modifications might be 
advanced, deserving a more extensive consideration. 
The smell of the flesh of the mole is remarkably rank 
and offensive, as, from the nature of its food, might be 
expected ; and it taints the fingers, which have touched 
it, with its peculiar odor, so that one washing does not 
remove it. It is reported of a late very eccentric noble- 
man, but with what truth I do not know, who essayed 
himself the flavor of every living thing, even to the 
eating of the large dew-worm, that the mole alone re- 
mained untasted by him, his stomach recoiling with 
disgust at the nauseous smell of the flesh of this crea- 
ture. Foxes eat moles, and will at times dig out the 
traps containing them. The brown owl, too, feeds on 
them, when it can meet with them outside of their runs 
hunting after dew-worms ; and probably the smaller 
vermin do the same : but the cat and the dog turn from 
them with manifest aversion as food ; though they will 
hunt and kill them as objects of the chase. 
These animals, we might suppose, while in their 
subterranean dwellings, would be secure from all injury 
by such as generally pursue their prey upon the surface 
of the earth ; but I have several times known the 
weasel caught in the mole-traps, making it manifest, 
that it hunts after the mole for its food, and in doing 
so, according to our comprehensions, must encounter in- 
finite danger from suffocation ; but it is more probable 
that so active a creature as the weasel is endowed with 
powers to accomplish its object with impunity, which 
we are not acquainted with. 
