ssists it in rooting, and the cervical muscles are very strong.
The eyes are microscopical, and almost concealed in the fur. At one
time it was a popular delusion that the mole was devoid of the power
of sight, but this is not the case. The sense of hearing is extremely
acute, and the tympanum is large, although externally there is no
aural development. The tail is short, the fur set vertically in the
skin, whence it is soft and velvety. The bones of the pubis do not
join, and the young when produced are large. The mammae are six in
number. The jaws are weak, the incisors are six above and eight below.
The canines (false molars?) have two roots. There are four false
molars above and three below, and three molars with pointed cusps.

Moles live principally on earth-worms, snails, and small insects,
though they are also said to devour frogs and small birds. They are
more common in Europe than in India, where the few known species are
only to be found in hilly parts. I have, I think, procured them on
the Satpura range some years ago, but I cannot speak positively to
the fact at this lapse of time, as I had not then devoted much
attention to the smaller mammalia, and it is possible that my
supposed moles were a species of shrew.

They are seldom if ever trapped in India, for the simple reason that
they are not considered worth trapping, and the destruction of moles
in England has long been carried on in the same spirit of ignorance
which led farmers, both there and in France, to destroy small birds
wholesale, till they did themselves much injury by the
multiplication of noxious insects. Moles, instead of being the
farmers' foes, are the farmers' friends. Mr. Buckland in his notes
to Gilbert White's 'Natural History of Selborne'(Macmillan's
_edition de luxe_ of 1876)--says: "After dinner we went round the
sweetstuff and toy booths in the streets, and the vicar, my
brother-in-law, the Rev. H. Gordon, of Harting, Petersfield, Hants,
introduced me to a merchant of gingerbread nuts who was a great
authority on moles. He tends cows for a contractor who keeps a great
many of the animals to make concentrated milk for the navy. The moles
are of great service; eat up the worms that eat the grass, and
wherever the moles have been afterwards the grass grows there very
luxuriantly. When the moles have eaten all the grubs and the worms
in a certain space, they migrate to another, and repeat their
gratuitous work. The grass where moles