THE MOLE. (Talpa Europæa.)
The Mole is a curious, awkwardly-shaped animal, with a long flexible snout, very small eyes, and hand-like fore feet, armed with very strong claws, with which it scrapes its way through the ground, when it is forming the subterranean passages in which it takes up its abode. The Mole, though it is supposed not to possess the advantage of sight, has the senses of hearing and feeling in great perfection; and its fur, which is short and thick, is set erect from its skin, so as not to impede its progress whether it goes forward or backwards along its runs. These runs are very curiously constructed: they cross each other at different points, but all lead to a nest in the centre, which the Mole makes his castle, or place of abode. The passages are made by the Mole in his search after the earth-worms and grubs, on which he lives; and the molehills are formed by the earth he scrapes out of his runs. These molehills do a great deal of mischief to grass lands, as they render the ground very difficult to mow; and on this account mole-catchers are employed to fix traps in the ground, so that when the mole is running through one of his passages, he passes through the trap, which instantly springs up out of the ground with the poor Mole in it. The female Mole makes her nest at a distance from the male’s castle. She has young only once a year, but she has four or five at a time.
The following curious fact respecting a Mole is related by Mr. Bruce. “In visiting the Loch of Clunie, I observed in it a small island, at the distance of a hundred and eighty yards from the land. Upon this island Lord Airlie, the proprietor, had a castle and small shrubbery. I observed frequently the appearance of fresh molehills; but for some time took it to be the water mouse, and one day I asked the gardener if it was so. He replied it was the Mole, and that he had caught one or two lately; but that five or six years ago he had caught two in traps, and for two years after this he had observed none. But about four years since, coming ashore one summer’s evening in the dusk, he and Lord Airlie’s butler saw, at a small distance upon the smooth water, an animal paddling to and not far distant from the island; they soon closed with the feeble passenger, and found it to be the Common Mole, led by a most astonishing instinct from the nearest point of land, (the castle-hill,) to take possession of this island. It was at this time, for about the space of two years, quite free from any subterraneous inhabitant; but the Mole has, for more than a year past, made its appearance again.”
The Mole is very pugnacious, and sometimes two of the males will fight furiously till one of them is killed.
