Molehill

“ 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{77} the ground with the poor Mole in it. The female Mole makes her nest at a distance from the male’s castle. ”

“ If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that. ”

“ They are so small, and covered over with fur, that he is sometimes thought to be quite blind. 8 For, as Leatherwing says, people are so stupid and ignorant! But I believe the mole's little eyes are not often of much use to him, for he seldom comes out of his caverns, and when he does it is at night. I think he would be much wiser to keep always under ground, and then he would be quite safe. I asked old Leatherwing how the mole could find out his food, as he always lives in the dark, and he said that his nose is more useful to him than his eyes, for he can smell anything at a great distance. ”

“ The Moles are known to be the best burrowers in the world: since they can pass under the surface of the ground as fast as a man can dig after them, or even faster. In England, the common mole is well-known—too well, in fact—for it is the very pest of the farmer; and the damage done by it to the herbage is very considerable indeed—of greater amount than that occasioned by any other wild animal.
In America, where there are several species of moles, their habits are similar; and the common American mole is very like its European congener in every respect. ”

“ When a hill of enlarged dimensions is thus discovered, we may be almost certain of finding the nest, or den of the mole near it, by digging to a sufficient depth. The fur of the mole is admirably adapted from its softness and short close texture for defending the animal from subterraneous damp, which is always injurious, more or less to non-amphibious animals; and in this climate, no choice of situation could entirely guard against it. It is a singular fact that there are no moles in Ireland. May not the dampness of the climate account for their not thriving there?—Edinburgh Lit. ”

“ The ordinary mole hills, so plentiful in our fields, present nothing particularly worthy of notice. They are merely the shafts through which the quadruped miner ejects the material which it has scooped out, as it drives its many tunnels through the soil, and if they be carefully opened after the rain has consolidated the heap of loose material, nothing more will be discovered than a simple hole leading into the tunnel. But let us Page 208 strike into one of the large tunnels, as any mole catcher will teach us, and follow it up to the real abode of the animal. ”

“ Mole made every member of his family look just alike, but that didn’t make any difference. The Moles are not very fussy if their pictures aren’t very well taken, for they can’t bother to look at pictures much of the time.
“You see their eyes are very small and they like to look at things more worth while—such as food and corn starting to grow in the ground and all the things the farmers plant. They love farms, you know, where wonderful vegetables are planted deep down in the earth. They are very apt to burrow along and make paths so they can walk to a farmland and have a feast. ”

“ Mole, I'm afraid they're in trouble. Little Portly is missing again; and you know what a lot his father thinks of him, though he never says much about it."
"What, that child?" said the Mole lightly. [Pg 171] "Well, suppose he is; why worry about it? He's always straying off and getting lost, and turning up again; he's so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him. Everybody hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do old Otter, and you may be sure some animal or other will come across him and bring him back again all right. ”

“ While the mole is engaged in travelling, particularly in loose earth, the soil for a time clings to the fur; but at tolerably regular intervals the creature gives the skin a sharp and powerful shake, which throws off at once the whole of the mould that has collected upon the fur. Some amount of dust still remains, for, however clean the fur of a mole may seem to be, if the creature be placed for an hour in water, a considerable quantity of earth will be dissolved away and fall to the bottom of the vessel. ”

“ However slight may be their personal acquaintance with the Mole himself, his engineering work is only too evident to every possessor of a garden. He may, perchance, live in a neighbour's land, but from time to time we shall find some morning that he has driven a tunnel right across the lawn or the tennis-court, marring its hitherto fair surface with an ugly ridge and at intervals a little heap of raw earth. If we are sufficiently self-controlled to dissemble our inward rage, we may get some countervailing good out of the calamity. ”

“ I also gave him a pan of water, as I remembered seeing a plan of a mole's burrow which always includes a place for water. It was a really painful sight to watch the creature feeding; he pounced upon a worm with the fury of a tiger, and holding it in his mouth, tore it to pieces with his sharp claws and rapidly devoured all the pieces, and snuffing about to make sure he had quite finished it, he then darted off to seek another. The mole has a most voracious appetite and dies very quickly if unable to obtain food. I was interested to watch the bustling, active life of the little creature ”

“ On one side of the little vineyard Mollie could see a path winding up the hill, twisting in and out between vines and overhanging trees till it lost itself in a flower-garden, which made such a splash of rosy pink and flaming scarlet that Mollie thought it might have been spilt out of a sunset.
By the roadside at her feet sat Grizzel, red curls still bobbing round her head, and apparently the very same blue overall still clothing her slim little body. She was moulding a lump of wet clay, shaping it into a bowl, pinching here, smoothing there, patting and pressing with both little grubby hands. ”

“ If mole hills move there will be a thaw. By the moving of mole hills is meant bits of earth tumbling off the mound. A labourer in Llanmerewig parish, Montgomeryshire, called my attention to this fact. It was a frosty day, and apparently no change was near, but it will thaw, said he, and certain I am, that by the next morning a thaw had set in.
Pigs.
Pigs used to be credited with the power of seeing the wind. Devils were fond of assuming the form of, or entering into, pigs. Pigs littered in February could not be reared. This I was told by a native of Llansantffraid, Montgomeryshire. ”

“ It is rather rare to see a mole above ground; fortunately for him he is of diminutive size, or so glossy a fur would prove his ruin. As it is, every other old pollard willow tree along the hedge is hung with miserable moles, caught in traps, and after death suspended—like criminals swinging on a gibbet—from {111}the end of slender willow boughs. Moles seem to breed in the woods: first perhaps because they are less disturbed there, next because under the trees the earth is usually softer, retains its moisture longer, and is easier to work. ”

“ I don't care about the people, though. We're engaged now, you know."
For answer Molly smiled again. Martin had never found her talkative, but her soft eyes were eloquent of all sorts of delightful things.
They climbed hand-in-hand up through the woods behind the inn. Molly took the lead, making her way unhesitatingly through an apparently trackless maze. As they ascended it grew lighter. The sunset glow lingered in the west above the mountain-tops, and trickled down through the trees in little rivulets of primrose light. ”

“ The fur of the mole is very short, fine, and close, and is as smooth and soft as Genoa velvet.
Moles display a high degree of instinct in the skilful construction of their subterranean fortresses. Their site is not indicated by those little mounds of loose earth, which we see raised up at night, and which mark their hunting excursions, but under a hillock reared by themselves, and protected by a wall, bank, or roots of a tree. The earth is well worked, so as to make it compact and hard, and galleries are formed which communicate with each other. ”

“ It is an animal injurious to the grounds of the farmer, by throwing up innumerable hills of mould, in the construction of its habitation, or the pursuit of its food, and many persons obtain their subsistence from the premiums, which are, on this account, given for their destruction. Moles can swim with considerable dexterity, and are thus furnished with the means of escape in sudden inundations, to which they are frequently exposed. In Ireland, the mole is unknown. ”

“ To get rid of this he makes his way to the surface from time to time, breaks through, and pushes the troublesome rubbish out with his nose, producing those well-known “Mole-hills” of loose earth which so commonly betray his progress in our fields and meadows. The depth at which the Mole works in his hunting-grounds depends very much upon circumstances. In light and newly-worked soils, after rain, when the earthworms especially come to the surface, the Mole will travel along in a sort of shallow trench in pursuit of his prey. ”

“ Oh, Miss Molly, let’s stay in the ‘beech wood period’ forever! None of us can afford to give up romance or the dear delight of tears for tears’ sake. I love to think of you as a little child playing in the apple orchard, and as a beautiful girl wandering in the woods. But do you know, a still more beautiful picture comes to my inward eye, and that is an old Molly with white hair sitting where you are now, still in the ‘romantic era,’ still in the beech woods ”

“ She had discovered no sign of her missing cows. But she was quite undisturbed, and not a whit nearer agreement with Lightning as to the meaning of her loss.
The excuse of her search, however, had served Molly well enough. Ranging these hills, with Nature bursting into renewed life, was a joy that never failed in its appeal. Molly loved it all with a youthful passion. She loved the radiant sunlight—the immensity, the complete solitude, of this world of forest, and hill, and sheltered valley. ”

“ As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be at home again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly that he was an animal of tilled field and hedge-row, linked to the ploughed furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated garden-plot. For others the asperities, the stubborn endurance, or the clash of actual conflict, that went with Nature in the rough; he must be wise, must keep to the pleasant places in which his lines were laid and which held adventure enough, in their way, to last for a lifetime. ”

“ To other inferior animals he is a sapper and miner, forming for them their safe retreats and well-secured dormitories.
The economy of the Mole has been much controverted among naturalists. It is found throughout the greater part of Europe. We are overrun with it in most parts of England and Wales; but it does not appear to have been found in the northern extremity of Scotland, and there is no record of its having been seen in the Orkney Isles, Zetland, or Ireland. ”

“ It must be a racer. I’ll have to cut and run!”
This she did with surprising agility, only pausing to look behind her once when she saw his snakeship, which did indeed belong to the racer species, trailing his shining length rapidly after. With a half sob in her throat, Molly flew on and on over hay-fields and hills, fences and brooks, until she had left Ferndale a mile behind her, and came up with a jerk against some tall, white palings that inclosed the beautiful lawn she had admired while riding that day—the Laurens place, as old Abe had called it in answer to her curious questions. ”

“ The first-named species inhabits Nepaul and Darjeling, and at the latter place, according to Mr. Jerdon, it is not uncommon, and many of the roads and pathways are intersected by its runs, which often proceed from the base of one great oak-tree to that of another. If the runs are broken into they are generally repaired during the night, and no Mole-hills are thrown up like those of the European Mole. The White-tailed Mole differs from the other species in having only three premolars on each side in each jaw, making forty teeth in all. ”

“ It is not likely that any of us will ever catch many moles. If they are troublesome in your lawn, you and the neighbour boys can do some trapping with mole traps. They are of a kind specially fitted to outwit the mole in his tunnel, and directions accompany each trap. ”

“ Our prayers to be aided in the fulfilment of the Divine commands are always heard by the Holy One who gave them.
Molly and her agitated father were still kneeling together at the entrance of the cave, when Molly felt herself suddenly raised from the ground, then closely embraced, and, upon looking up, she saw herself in the arms of her grandfather, who, in the most unexpected manner, had tottered to the rude door of the cavern.
"O'Neil," said the old man, while his voice trembled audibly, "O'Neil, I have heard your prayer. I read in your moistened eyes that [72] you have conquered ”