TITE MULTITUDE OF MOLES.
The immense population of moles is a salient fact in the natural history of England. They are universally numerous in England to-day; and do a good deal of service. In a ploughed field the more the better. They help to drain it and they keep certain plagues at bay. But they ruin many grass fields, one may say most grass fields in some counties, Essex, for example, and Warwickshire ; and when the value of the skin is considered it Is surprising that the art of mole- catching has quite fallen into abeyanee. One would expect this little mammal's coat to prove its undoing. A quaint old writer, and enthusiastic gourmet, once complained of "the wicked waste of allowing great big snails to crawl about unmolested and uneaten" ! In country places, where men will spend long laborious hours in digging up dandelion roots— worth at most 7s. a hundredweight—you would hardly have thought that an easily-trapped animal with a skin worth is. Od. would be left unmolested. As for "uneaten," did not Frank Buckland say that it was the only really nasty animal he had tasted, and he tasted them all ! It is doubtless a happy thing for the mole that he is most difficult to trap at this season when his coat is at its best.
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