4 
STRANGE DWELLINGS. 
burrows in such admirably straight lines is not an easy problem, 
because it is always in black darkness, and we know of nothing 
which can act as a guide to the animal. As for ourselves and 
other eye-possessing animals, to walk in a straight line with 
closed eyelids is almost an impossibility, and every swimmer 
knows the difficulty of keeping a straight course under water, 
even with the use of his eyes. 
The ordinary mole-hills, which are so plentiful in our fields, 
present nothing particularly worthy of notice. They are the 
shafts through which the quadrupedal miner ejects the materials 
which it has scooped out, as it drives its many tunnels through 
the soil, and if they be carefully opened after the rain has 
consolidated the heap of loose material, nothing more will be 
discovered than a simple hole leading into the tunnel. But let 
us strike into one of the large tunnels, as any mole-catcher will 
teach us, and follow it up until we come to the real abode of 
the animal. 
A section of this extraordinary habitation is given in the 
illustration. The hill under which this domicile is hidden is of 
considerable size, but is not very conspicuous, because it is 
always placed under the shelter of a tree, a shrub, or a suitable 
bank, and would not be discovered but by a practised eye. The 
subterraneous abode within the hillock is so remarkable that it 
involuntarily reminds the observer of the well-known maze, with 
which the earliest years of youth have been puzzled throughout 
many successive generations. 
The central apartment, or keep, if we so term it, is a nearly 
spherical chamber, the roof of which is nearly on a level with 
the earth around the hill, and therefore situated at a considerable 
depth from the apex of the heap. Around this keep are driven 
two circular passages, or galleries, one just level with the ceiling 
and the other at some height above. The upper circle is much 
smaller than the lower. Five short descending passages connect 
the galleries with each other, but the only entrance into the 
keep is from the upper gallery, out of which three passages lead 
into the ceiling of the keep. It will be seen, therefore, that 
when a Mole enters the house from one of his tunnels, he has 
