Why has he come up? We can only surmise that he is satiated with the luscious earthworms and beetle grubs that live under our lawn, and is looking around for some more substantial fare—a dead bird or mouse, perhaps, for he is by no means averse from picking bones for a change, though his structure makes it impossible for him to catch any of the vertebrates alive, but he can kill and eat a smaller or weaker Mole, and has been reported to attack birds, lizards, frogs, and snakes; he will not touch vegetable food. His appetite is almost insatiable, and there is little substance in his underground fare, which impels him ever to increase his sources of supply by boring fresh runs. There! your movement alarmed him, and he has dived to earth again in the soft mould of the border.
It is not only in the garden that we may see the Mole and his work. He is perhaps more active in the meadow and the cornfield, where he has a wider range for his long straight main run and the side runs that branch off from it. In either of these places he is actually much more of a nuisance than in our garden—difficult though it may be for the garden-owner to realise this. When the hay or the wheat has to be reaped the lines of hillocks across the field are an impediment to the reaping machines. So the farmer has to set traps to minimise the nuisance as much as possible. When these are of the bent hazel rod and noose variety we may find the trapped Mole swinging from the rod that has straightened itself, and can then indulge in a close inspection of his form and structure. In pasture-land the mole-hills often appear to occupy more space than the intervening surface.
The velvet-clad body is cylindrical, with the forelimbs set well forward opposite the short neck. The long muzzle is blunt-pointed and terminated by the nostrils, which are close together. His eyes are mere points that have to be searched for among the close fur, and the same applies to the ears which have no external shell. Shakespeare, who thought the Mole sightless, was aware of his acute sense of hearing—
"Pray you, tread softly, that the blind Mole may not
Hear a footfall."
The flexible snout is adapted for turning up the earth after the immense hands with their large, strong nails have loosened it. They are wide-open hands that cannot be closed and the palms always face outwards. The hairs constituting the velvety fur are all set vertically, so that they will lie forwards or backwards or to either side; and the colour appears to change according to our point of view—two persons viewing the same Mole can describe it correctly as black and as grey. It is really a dark grey.
The teeth should be examined. In the upper jaw there are six incisors of equal size—three on each side—two comparatively large canines of triangular shape and flattened from the sides, eight little premolars and six molars. In the lower jaw the dentition is somewhat puzzling, as the canines are similar to the incisors and the first premolar is developed into a suitable mate for the upper canine. These are not teeth designed for gnawing like those of the Rat and Rabbit; they are for biting insects and other small creatures, and agree in general with those of the Shrews. The formula stands thus:
i 3/3, c 1/1, p 4/4, m 3/3 = 44.
The adult Mole is a slave to his appetite, and if kept without food for only a few hours he dies of starvation. Knowing this, the old writers averred that he kept a store of bitten worms so that he might draw upon it on emergency; but this statement has never been substantiated by careful observers.
Every one is familiar with the diagrams of what was styled fancifully the Mole's Fortress, as though it were a stronghold held by force against an enemy. There is really no more reason for calling it a fortress than for applying the same term to a Rabbit's burrow or a bird's nest. The idea upon which the originators of the fortress story worked was that the molehill was a place of intricate passages where the invader could be given the slip: Le Court, the French inventor of the term, whose account was published by Antoine Cadet de Vaux in 1803, described its interior as having a central chamber surrounded by two galleries, one above, the other below, connected by five nearly equidistant passages. From the upper and smaller gallery three similar passages gave access to the central hall, at the bottom of which was a bolt-hole communicating with the main run. Plans and elevations, as an architect would describe them, were made of these details, and for a hundred years every writer on the Mole reproduced these illustrations without doubting their absolute accuracy. It was so much more easy to accept them than to patiently explore and accurately draw the actual structure. Of course, what these writers described as a fortress must not be confused with the "mole-heaves" or "tumps" thrown up at frequent intervals to get rid of the earth from a newly excavated run. These are only a few inches in height. The home of the Mole—the molehill proper—is about a foot high and about three feet broad in any direction. This, as a rule, will be found partly sheltered by a bush, sometimes well out in a pasture, and always on the line of the Mole's high-road, which lies deeper than the newer side runs he is always excavating for hunting purposes. These are but little below the surface, in the richer soil where there are more worms and grubs and where the dug-out earth is easily pushed up to the surface by the pressure of his head.