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MOLE

Volume 7 · 438 words · 1778 Edition

a river in Surry, which has taken its name from running under ground. It first disappears at Boxhill, near Dorking, in the county of Surry, and emerges again near Leatherhead.

zoology. See Talpa.

Moles in the fields may be destroyed by taking a head or two of garlic, onion, or leek, and putting it into their holes; on which they will run out as if frightened, and you may kill them with a spear or dog. Or pounded heliobore, white or black, with wheat-flour, the white of an egg, milk, and sweet-water, or metheglin, may be made into a paste, and pellets as big as a small nut may be put into their holes: the moles will eat this with pleasure, and will be killed by it. In places where you would not dig nor break much, the fuming their holes with brimstone, garlic, or other unfavourable things, drives them away; and if you put a dead mole into a common haunt, it will make them absolutely forsake it.

Or take a mole-spear or staff, and where you see them cast, go lightly; but not on the side betwixt them and the wind, lest they perceive you; and at the first or second putting up of the earth, strike them with your mole-staff downright, and mark which way the earth falls most: if she casts towards the left-hand, strike somewhat on the right-hand; and so on the contrary, to the casting up of the plain ground, strike down, and there let it remain; then take out the tongue in the staff, and with the spattle, or flat edge, dig round about your grain to the end thereof, to see if you have killed her; and if you have missed her, leave open the hole, and step aside a little, and perhaps she will come to stop the hole again, for they love but very little air; and then strike her again; but if you miss her, pour into the hole two gallons of water, and that will make her to come out for fear of drowning; mind them going out of a morning to feed, or coming home when fed, and you may take a great many.

midwifery, a mass of fleshly matter, of a spherical figure, generated in the uterus, and sometimes mistaken for a child. See Midwifery, chap. ii.

Mark. See Nevus.

Mole is also a massive work of large stones laid in the sea by means of coffer-dams; extending before a port, either to defend the harbour from the impetuosity of the waves, or to prevent the passage of ships without leave.

Mole-Cricket. See Gryllotalpa.