“The mole is a good illustration: it has forty-four sharply pointed teeth, not including the incisors. Do they look like millstones for the leisurely grinding of grain and roots, or sharp tools for making mincemeat of torn flesh?”
Jaws and Teeth of a Mole
“They are certainly the teeth of an animal that lives on prey,” Louis admitted; “the hedgehog and the bat haven’t sharper ones.”
“To make you sure of this fact,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will tell you about some experiments made on the diet of moles. We owe them to a learned French naturalist, Flourens. If after you are grown up you ever have a chance to read his remarkable works, you will find them very interesting and valuable.
“Flourens put two live moles into a cask and, believing them to be herbivorous, gave them for food a supply of roots, carrots, and turnips. As you see, the illustrious naturalist shared the accepted opinion, the false notion just repeated by Louis. But Flourens was soon undeceived. The next morning the vegetables were found untouched, while one of the moles had been devoured by its companion and [[69]]there was nothing left of it but the skin, turned inside out.”
“One of the moles had eaten the other?” cried Emile. “Oh, what a fierce creature!”
“It had feasted on its own kind, a thing that hardly any other animal does. In devouring its comrade it had in the course of the night eaten its own weight of food; and yet the next morning it seemed restless and very hungry. Flourens threw it a live sparrow whose wings he had just clipped. The mole smelt it, walked around it, received a few hard pecks from its beak, then, pouncing on the bird, tore its stomach open and enlarged the opening with its claws so as to plunge its head into the midst of the entrails. With its pointed snout the horrible creature bored into them with frantic delight. In less than no time it had devoured half the contents of the skin, which with its feathers was left whole. Flourens then lowered into the cask a glass full of water and saw the mole stand up against the glass, cling to the edge with its fore claws, and drink eagerly. When it had had enough, the animal returned to the sparrow, ate a little more of it, and finally, completely full, lay down to sleep in a corner. The glass and the remains of the bird were then taken out of the cask.
“Hardly six hours later the mole, hungry again, began to smell around the bottom of the cask in search of something to eat. A second sparrow was thrown to it. The mole immediately tore open the [[70]]stomach to get at its entrails. When it had eaten most of the bird and taken another big drink of water, it appeared satisfied and remained quiet. This was its last meal for the day. Just think, boys, what a quantity of reeking flesh it took to satisfy one mole’s hunger! In the night its companion in captivity, and the next day two sparrows! The weight of the food eaten in twenty-four hours was nearly twice that of the eater.
