451 
COMMON MOLE. 
claws and teeth. They are said to be very feroci* 
ous animals ; and however contented they may be 
together underground,, yet, when above, they will 
sometimes tear and eat one another. In a glass 
case, in which a mole, a toad, and a viper were 
inclosed, the mole has been known to dispatch 
the other two, and to devour a great part of 
each. 
The skin of the mole is exceedingly tough ; the 
fur is close* set, and softer than the finest velvet, or, 
perhaps than the fur of any other animal. This is 
usually black ; but moles have been found spotted 
with white ; and sometimes, though only rarely, 
altogether white. 
Linnaeus says that the mole passes the winter in 
a state of torpidity. In this asssertion, however, 
he is directly contradicted by the Comte de Buf- 
fon ; according to whom it sleeps so little in the 
wdnfcr, that it raises the earth in the same manner 
as during the summer. 
The following is a very remarkable instance, re- 
lated by Arthur Bruce, Esq. in the Transactions of 
the Linnaean Society, of the exertions which the 
mole makes towards crossing even broad waters. 
€t On visiting/’ says this gentleman, the loch of 
Clunie, which I often did, I observed in it a small 
island at the distance of one hundred and eighty 
yards from the nearest land, measured to be so upon 
the ice. Upon the island, lord Airly, the proprie- 
tor, has a castle and a small shrubbery. I remark- 
ed frequently the appearance of fresh mole-casts 
or hills. I for some time took them for those of 
the water-mouse ; and one day asked the gardener 
if it was so. No, he said, it was the mole ; and 
that he had caught one or two lately. Five or 
six years ago he caught two in traps ; and for two 
years after this, he had observed none. But about 
four years ago, coming ashore one summer’s ever&* 
