(See TALPA, Encycl.), is an animal exceedingly troublesome, both to gardeners and farmers; and there are persons who contrive to make a livelihood by the trade of mole-catching. These men, it is well known, are generally quacks and cheats; and the secrets which they sell for exterminating those destructive animals are of very little avail. Even poison seldom produces any considerable effect; because the mole, while it does not drink, lives only on roots and worms. Under the word MOLE (Encycl.), some directions will be found for clearing fields of this destructive animal; but the following are perhaps preferable, as they seem to have been the result of much experience:

Immediately at day-break, it will be necessary to make a tour round the garden or meadow, from which it is wished to extirpate the moles; for at that time they will be all found at work, as may be seen by the hills newly thrown up. If the person is then close to the hill, he must proceed as the gardeners do, and turn up with a stroke of the spade the hill together with the digger. The passage is then cut through before the animal is aware of the attack; and therefore it has not power to escape. If the mole-hill be fresh, even though the animal may not be throwing up earth, the person ought not to lose his time in waiting, but should immediately proceed to the operation above-mentioned.

If you find a fresh hill standing by itself, which seems to show by its situation that it has no communication with any other, which is always the case when the mole has worked from the surface downwards in endeavouring to procure a more convenient habitation, after the hill has been turned up with the spade, a bucket of water should be poured over the mouth of the passage. By these means the animal, which is at no great distance, will be obliged to come forth, and may be easily caught with the hand.

You may discover also whether a hill has any communication with another, if you apply your ear to it, and then cough or make a loud noise. If it has no communication with the neighbouring hills; you will hear the terrified animal make a noise by its motion. It will then be impossible for it to escape; and you may either pour water into the hole, or turn up the hill with a spade, until the mole is found; for, in general, it never goes deeper into the earth than from fifteen to eighteen inches.

When any of the beds in a garden have been newly watered, the mole, attracted by the coolness and moisture, readily repairs thither, and takes up its residence in them, making a passage at the depth of scarcely an inch below the surface. In that case it may easily be caught. When you see it at work, you need only tread behind the animal with your feet on the passage to prevent its retreat, and then turn up the hill with a spade; by which means you will be sure to catch it.

When you dig after it with a spade, the animal forces its way downwards into the earth in a perpendicular direction, in order that it may the better escape the threatened danger. In that case it will not be necessary to dig long, but to pour water over the place, which will soon make the animal return upwards.

People, in general, are not aware of the great mischief occasioned in fields and gardens by these animals. We are, however, informed by Buffon, that in the year 1740 he planted fifteen or sixteen acres of land with acorns, and that the greater part of them were in a little time carried away by the moles to their subterranean retreats. In many of these there were found half a bushel, and in others a bushel. Buffon, after this circumstance, caused a great number of iron traps to be constructed;