Mole’s Burrow
“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b) [[79]]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”
“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”
“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.
“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage marked p, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than [[80]]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse
“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”
“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are [[81]]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.
“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.