240 MR. HOGG ON THE EFFECTS OE MOLE-CATCHING. 
toral districts of the country, a verdict of “ not guilty” may be 
brought in in favour of the long-enduring mole. Let us hope, 
then, that henceforward he may be suffered to live in peace, and 
die of old age, in all the sunny glens and green-sward knolls of 
Yarrow. — But what will the insulted gardener say to this our 
care of his ancient enemy ? “ He is a thief; he steals my acorns 
by the bushel, plays the d-1 with my onion-beds, and roots 
up my tulips/' Alas, for the little culprit! Within the limits of 
the ravaged garden, we fear we must give him up to the ven¬ 
geance of the trap. But on the wide spread surface of the fields, 
where there are no onion-beds to ravage, and no tulips to be laid 
waste, and where a little space is yet left for the denizens of 
nature to breathe and sport in,—is it quite certain that all the 
mischief which the little mole works to our turnips and our man¬ 
gel worzel is not paid to us with usury, by the prodigious multi¬ 
tude of larvse and destructive insects which he consumes ? We 
* . 
repeat, that the question is worthy of more consideration than it 
has obtained. We put the whole question, however, entirely on 
the ground of expediency, and not of humanity towards the mole. 
This latter plea were absurd : the mole is himself a beast of prey ; 
he destroys thousands of creatures, having, like him, the fear of 
death, and endowed, for aught we can ever know, with a sense 
of suffering as keen as his own. Nay, he is not only a beast of 
prey, but a very cruel beast of prey. Were we not ourselves an 
angler—had we not impaled worms alive, and dangled them in 
a brook—we should condemn the barbarous manner in w 7 hich he 
treats the captive worm. He actually skins the poor animal be¬ 
fore he eats him—skins him alive, we protest; and with a dexte¬ 
rity that would put Sir Astley Cooper out of countenance. 
Thus, he show r s that he can be as nice in his diet, and as cruel 
in preparing it, as man himself. Besides, when he comes to the 
surface in pursuit of food, he is himself the prey of other animals, 
more dexterous or more powerful; and chiefly of the owl, from 
whose formidable talons all his nice sense of hearing, and power 
of burrowing, do not suable him to escape. Thus, Nature her¬ 
self provides a remedy for the too great increase of this as of 
other animals that may injure us. If we suffer our moles to multi¬ 
ply, we may merely substitute for the mole-catcher with his traps, 
the pole-cat, the weasel, and the owl, with their claws and their 
teeth; no great change for the better, we imagine, to the sufferer. 
Death, as well as life, is a law of Nature, and when reason directs 
us to destroy animals that are noxious to us, it can hardly be 
supposed that we violate any natural feeling. The question, as 
regards the mole, then, we apprehend, has nothing to do with 
humanity to the animal. It is simply, How far it is expedient 
to allow the multiplication of this class of animals in our corn¬ 
fields, and how fir to prevent it? Whether, in short, the 
mole does us more injury by his snout , than good by his teeth ?— 
Edit.] 
