CUMBERLAND: The mole-catcher dug for me a section of the run in the peaty ground in which he was setting his traps. The imprints of the mole’s feet were plainly visible. They showed that one foot was planted on the floor and the other on the wall of the tiny tunnel. Almost at the end of a 22 miles’ tramp over land lying between mountain and lake the mole-catcher found in his trap a mole that could only have entered at the moment of our approach. It was no worse for having been snared.
I pleaded for the little creature’s life, and my friend obliged me. So I had an opportunity of seeing whether on the metalled road the mole could put its splayed feet down “like a gentleman.” And it did. No sideway movement such as the tracks inside the tunnel indicate. The mole turned quickly first this way and that to avoid the boot placed to prevent an immediate regaining of its liberty. For a little beastie that spends most of its life underground it saw amazingly well. And how it dug for freedom when at last it reached the hedgerow! Those feet were pick, spade, and shovel.
