are many instances of Moles swimming fairly long distances. L. Adams mentions
an instance of a Mole being killed while swimming in a Scotch lake a hundred
yards from! shore, and Moles have frequently been observed to cross a river of
their own accord. A Mole has been known to swim nearly across Lake Morar, a
broad loch in Ross-shire, when it was intercepted after going nearly a mile and a
half.1 If the animal could do this, I fail to see why it could not reach Mull by
swimming from the mainland.
Unlike thé hedgehog, the Mole does not hibernate. In the coldest weather
it works at a deeper level than usual. In times of snow we see the earth thrown
up on the surface as at all other seasons. Moles occasionally come up and move
about on the surface; this generally occurs in the spring, when they are fighting
or chasing one another, or when the female is gathering materials for her nest,
but it also happens in autumn.
All over the south of England farmers and countrymen will tell you they
expect to see Moles moving on the surface of the ground in August and September,
after an exceptionally dry summer. Drought is doubtless the cause of this. In
the Weald of West Sussex, where Moles are so abundant, there is but a thin layer
of loam, sometimes only a few inches above the hard clay, through which the
Mole either cannot or will not burrow. When this supersoil becomes caked
and hard and the worms have left it for a deeper level, the Moles must come up
both to search for water and food and to shift their ground. I have frequently
seen at this season runs of Moles, doubtless made at night, which were so broken
on the top that the animal may be said to have been working on the surface.
The back of the animal must at any rate have been exposed while forming them.
Surface Mole runs of this description are also common in the dry ironstone of
N orthamptonshire.
Two or three times in the autumn I have seen Moles on the surface of the
ground. I once watched one for a considerable time as it worked along the side
of a bank which had recently fallen in. It appeared to be hunting for worms,
and was moving its head from side to side with a peculiar jerky motion as it
nosed along. Mr. Adams suggests that they may come to the surface more in
June, July, and August, for at that time they are least in evidence in their
subterranean life, because worms are pairing on the surface in thousands, and
that they come up nightly to eat them. Moles are very fond of water, and some
writers think they come out every night to bathe and drink, which may or may
1 Zoologist, 1877, p. 441.
not be the case. Mr. Adams says, they will come to the surface during snow ;
he has seen their tracks in snow. At any rate, they do come up frequently for
this purpose, and at such times doubtless often become the prey of owls, in
whose pellets their remains are to be found.
Blasius says that, on the Continent, birds of prey and storks will wait for
the appearance of the Mole at its heap, and that the stoat, weasel, and even
the adder will follow it in its runs.1 In Britain there are but few raptorial birds
left, though the common buzzard, which still lingers in Wales and the North,
feeds largely upon the Mole, and is described as sometimes waiting for Moles
near the molehills. Stoats are large animals to follow a Mole in its burrow, but
no doubt the female weasel— the ‘ mouse-killer ’— often does s o ; it has been
frequently captured in traps set in the runs, and Mr. Rope,2 Mr. H. Hardy
Simpson,8 and others bear testimony to its Mole-killing habits.4 The statement
that the viper devours the Mole is not supported by reliable evidence, neither is
it at all certain that the hedgehog will eat it, though it has been said to be
a regular enemy of the Mole. Mr. Adams is of opinion that herons sometimes
devour Moles, and without doubt owls do so whenever they can catch the animal
on the surface of the ground; the bones of Moles are not infrequent in owl pellets.
The brown rat no doubt accounts for a few, and the. fox and badger will also
eat i t ; the last two creatures are said to dig young Moles out of the nest, and the
badger is also said to take captured and dead Moles out of traps.
Besides the various traps that are employed for the capture of these animals—
from the old-fashioned spring and noose down to the recently invented American
piercer, which does away with all hand-contact— it may not be beside the point
to say that Moles can easily be shot. The Mole generally gives three upheavals
in creating the mound, and if you are close at hand and fire at once at the base
of the molehill when the animal makes its second movement you will generally
find that you have killed it. These movements are said by a writer in the ‘ Field ’
to take place regularly at 7 A.M., n a .m ., and 3 p .m . in freshly created runs, but
1 In Britain there is not much evidence that the viper feeds upon the Mole, but at least one case has occurred. Major
Thresbie, of Bambarroch, found three young Moles in an adder which was killed in July 1903. Service, Ann. Scot N a t H ist
April 1904, p. 67.
* Zoologist; 1887, p. 68. 3 Field, May 1886.
4 The enormous increase in Moles in the south of England, especially in Sussex, may be to some extent accounted for
by the destruction of stoats and weasels. More than one writer has already suggested this explanation. Both the stoat and
the weasel are excellent diggers when they wish to do so, and it is not difficult for them to smell and dig down into the
already loosely built fortress, where the young Moles are an easy prey.
VOL. I. t