508 
After well considering the pros and cons of the question, we 
may be led to see that the amount of good is greater than the 
evil, and that the Mole ought to be classed in the category of 
animals which, if not useful, are at least inoffensive. 
It is necessary to say, however, that this opinion is far 
from being generally accepted, for Moles are pursued a entrance. 
There are men who specially devote themselves to their de- 
struction. The Mole-catcher has at his fingers’ ends the 
habits of his game. With experience he follows it through 
its galleries ; he knows that such a hillock, higher than the 
others, covers its nest, and that such another overhangs its seat. 
If exercising his vocation he arrives early in the morning, at the 
time when his prey is hard at work ; he keeps its movements in 
view, and whenever he chances to see the soil upheaving, he 
excavates rapidly with a spade behind the animal, so as to cut off 
its retreat. He then digs down, and is sure to find the animal in 
the Mole-hill in process of formation. 
For difficult occasions, the Mole-catcher has traps of various 
kinds, which he places in the most recently -made galleries. 
The trap most used is that of Delafaille (Fig. 222, a a'). It 
consists of a hollow wooden cylinder, from ten to twelve inches 
long, and of a diameter nearly equal to that of the Mole galleries. 
At each extremity is a valve which opens from without to within, 
but not from within to without. It will be understood what 
happens when the trap is placed in one of the runs. 
The Mole, anxious to repair the damage done to its thorough- 
fare, approaches the tube, pushes through the valve ; this closes, 
and it is a prisoner. The inventor of this trap has still further 
improved it by a thin stalk placed vertically in the tube, and 
terminating externally in a piece of paper. The Mole, excited 
by the noise of the agitation of the paper, which it thinks 
caused by some prey, rushes at it, and in doing so raises up the 
valve. 
Two other arrangements of Mole-trap are shown in Fig. 222, 
b c. These are a kind of Mouse-trap, which is placed, not in 
the interior of galleries, like that of Delafaille, but outside, on 
the Mole-hill. 
The time preferred to destroy Moles is that at which the young 
are about to be brought forth. As soon as a nest is recognised, 
