Moles' Skins for Furs
For moles' skins the keeper has no sentiment. He will not part with his skins of rare birds—but will willingly barter the prospect of wearing a moles' skin waistcoat for the price of an ounce of shag a skin. By catching moles he pleases the farmers, who know no more than he himself about any good work that moles do: he frees his rides from unsightly heaps and raised tunnellings; and now and then his mole-traps catch a weasel. Many keepers make a fair sum of money each year by selling moles' skins; furriers will as readily give twopence for a skin as others threepence or sixpence. The skins, cut close round the head, are drawn from the moles' bodies as a man draws stockings from his legs; they are pegged out, fur downwards, on a board, to be dried and powdered with alum, then are stuffed with meadow hay, and packed by scores or hundreds. Perhaps no fur is quite so soft and beautiful as the mole's; and the keeper is always well pleased to note how well the pelts of his enemies become women-folk's faces.
