156 
RELATIONS. 
Or set off with any other distinctive part in the body 
of the swan; for instance, w r ith the long neck. The long 
neck, without the web foot, would have been an encum¬ 
brance to the bird; yet there is no necessary connexion 
between a long neck and a web foot. In fact they do not 
usually go together. How happens it, therefore, that they 
meet only w r hen a particular design demands the aid of 
both? 
II. This mutual relation, arising from a subserviency 
to a common purpose, is very observable also in the parts 
of a mole. The strong short legs of that animal, the pal- 
mated feet armed with sharp nails, the pig-like nose, the 
teeth, the velvet coat, the small external ear, the sagacious 
smell, the sunk protected eye, all conduce to the utilities 
or to the safety of its under-ground life. It is a special 
purpose, specially consulted throughout. The form of the 
feet fixes the character of the animal. They are so many 
shovels; they determine its action to that of rooting in the 
ground; and everything about its body agrees with this 
destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as well as 
the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness of 
its limbs, proportionably lessens its labor; because, accord¬ 
ing to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quanti¬ 
ty of earth to be removed for its progress. It has nearly 
the same structure of the face and jaws as a swine, and 
the same office for them. The nose is sharp, slender, 
tendinous, strong; with a pair of nerves going down to 
the end of it. The plush covering, which, by the smooth¬ 
ness, closeness, and polish of the short piles that compose 
it, rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, 
defends the animal from cold and wet, and from the imped¬ 
iment which it would experience by the mould sticking to 
its body. From soils of all kinds the little pioneer comes 
forth bright and clean. Inhabiting dirt, it is, of all animals, 
the neatest. 
But what I have always most admired in the mole is its 
eyes. This animal occasionally visiting the surface, and 
wanting, for its safety and direction, to be informed when 
it does so, or when it approaches it, a perception of light 
was necessary. I do not know that the clearness of sight 
depends at all upon the size of the organ. What is gained 
by the largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye is 
width in the field of vision. Such a capacity would be of 
no use to an animal which was to seek its food in the dark. 
The mole did not want to look about it; nor would a large 
advanced eye have been easily defended from the annoy- 
