THE MOLE’S NEST—THE SHREW-MOUSE
“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little
mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of
greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the
soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to
search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full
of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it
smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or
bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds
a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is
soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones
undertaken from day to day.
“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels
as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it
retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of
art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses
great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not
think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the dirt
thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking
beneath these crumbling hillocks.
“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) 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 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.”
“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 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.
“These little creatures are to be found in fields and meadows and
gardens, and in winter they come near our houses and make their nests
under straw-stacks and dung-heaps. In very cold weather they even find
their way into stables, where they live on cockroaches and wood-lice;
but at the approach of summer they are off again to the open fields,
where they complete the mole’s work of extermination. Or they may seek
some garden, where they protect the wall-fruit and the vegetable
patches from the devouring insect hordes without ever touching any of
the growing crops themselves. The teeth of the shrew-mouse are not made
for the chewing of vegetable food; like the mole, this tiny creature is
carnivorous. Moreover, in their hunting-raids, which are so greatly to
our advantage, shrew-mice never do us the slightest injury of any sort,
as they never bore tunnels, but merely use the natural cracks in the
soil. They cannot be reproached with severing roots or throwing up
mounds of earth, as moles do; and yet they are perhaps more an object
of general execration than the latter. It is considered a praiseworthy
act to crush them every time one gets a chance.
“How has so tiny, pleasing, and useful a creature managed thus to incur
the hatred of man? We have here, my children, another instance of the
foolish way we accept the first notion that enters our heads, without
trying to test it by observation and reason. It is said that the
shrew-mouse bites horses’ feet and leaves incurable wounds. But how can
a shrew-mouse, whose head is at most no larger than a pea, bite a horse
and pierce its hide which is the thickness of a finger or more? Again,
they say the shrew-mouse is venomous even for man. Some time ago,
children, I told you about the viper. [2] You know what its weapons
are,—two long, sharp teeth or fangs having little channels through
which it introduces a drop of venom into the wound it inflicts. Well, I
assure you the shrew-mouse has no weapon like the viper’s; it has
neither fangs nor a poison-sac, but is wholly harmless to man and
horse. Insects alone need fear its fine teeth,—not that they are
poisoned in any way, but because they crunch their little victims very
neatly.
“I think I see why the shrew-mouse has incurred the charge of being
venomous. The pretty little creature exhales an odor; it smells rather
strongly of musk. The cat, taking it for a mouse, sometimes chases it,
but, repelled by its odor, never eats it. The first to observe this
fact said to himself: ‘As the cat does not dare eat it the shrew-mouse
must be venomous.’ Ever since then this false belief has passed for
truth in the country, and no one has taken the trouble to look into the
matter more closely; so that the poor little shrew-mouse, one of our
most useful and harmless helpers, falls a victim to the stupidity of
man, whose gardens it protects.”