The _Moles_ are beginning to throw up the earth, and to destroy the
herbage of the light soils. What an extraordinary animal is the mole! We
constantly see his traces of destructiveness, but how difficult is it to
track him to his hiding-place. And no wonder: his excavations are
galleries of many feet in length, worked out by his snout and strong
fore-paws, with all the skill and expedition of a human miner; and when
he is alarmed he retreats to his citadel, and defies all enemies. The
mole, as is well known to our country readers, is destroyed by a trap of
peculiar construction, which is discharged by the little animal passing
through it. The mole-catcher--in general a quiet old man, who passes the
winter in making his traps in his chimney corner--comes forth at this
season with his implements of destruction. His practised eye soon
discovers the track of the mole, from the mound which he throws up to
some neighbouring bank, or from one mound to another. It is in this
track or run that he sets his trap, a few inches below the surface of
the ground. As the mole passes through this little engine of his ruin he
disturbs a peg which holds down a strong hazel rod in a bent position.
The moment the peg is moved the end of the rod which is held down flies
up, and with it comes up the poor mole, dragged out of the earth which
he has so ingeniously excavated, to be gibbetted without a chance of
escape. The trap is very simple and effectual; but, somehow, the moles
flourish in spite of their human enemies. Mole-catchers, a plodding,
unscientific race, know little of their trade, which requires the most
accurate study of the habits of the animal. There was a Frenchman of the
name of Le Court, (he died about two years ago,) a man of great
knowledge and perseverance, who did not think it beneath him to devote
his whole attention to the observation of the mole. He established a
school for mole-catching; and taught many, what he had acquired by
incessant perseverance, the art of tracing the mole to his hiding-place
in the ground, and cutting off his retreat. The skill of this man once
saved a large and fertile district of France from inundation by a canal,
whose banks the moles had undermined in every direction. Le Court alone
saw the mischief, and could stop it. Doubts have been entertained
whether moles are really so mischievous to the farmer as they are
generally supposed to be. It has been said that they assist the draining
of land by forming their excavations, and that they thus prevent the
foot-rot in sheep.
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