SECTION OF MR. MOLE'S CASTLE
This is a cross-section of a mole-hill, showing the central chamber and the rooms leading into it.
The kind of moles you find in Europe live in what seem to be little earthen fortresses, and the tops, sticking above ground, make hillocks. In each of these little forts there is a central chamber; then outside of this, running all the way around, are two galleries, one above the other. The upper gallery has several openings into the central chamber. The galleries are connected by two straight up-and-down shafts. From the lower galleries several passages, usually from eight to ten, lead away to where the moles go out to feed; and if there is a body of water near by—a pond or a creek, say—there's a special tunnel leading to that.
Mr. Mole works hard and he sleeps hard. The big middle room in his home is the bedchamber of Mr. Mole and his family. Usually he sleeps soundly all night, but occasionally, on fine Summer nights, he comes out and enjoys the air.
THE COMMON AND THE STAR-NOSED MOLE
You'd think he'd get awfully dirty, wouldn't you, boring his way along in the ground all the time? But he doesn't. His hair is always as spick and span as if he'd just come out of the barber-shop. Do you know why? It's because he wears his hair pompadoured. It grows straight out from the skin. So you see he can go backward and forward—as he is obliged to do constantly in the day's work—without mussing it up at all. If it lay down, like yours or like pussy-cat's, it would get into an awful mess! In France the children call Mr. Mole "The Little Gentleman in the Velvet Coat."