The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1916-02-11
THE MOLE A CURIOUS ANIMAL
Lives Under the Earth But Comes to the
Surface at High Noon

/
literature by G. P. Serviss will be
found OF unusual interest. The mole
is found in every part Of the world with
only slightly varying characteristics.
AS blind as a mole is, OF course, like
many other phrases, inaccurate.
You would not like to be born a
mole and live blindly under ground,
spending your life in making endless
burrows with spade-shaped hands, and
snout having a sharp bone at the end
for borer. Yet a mole seems to be
very happy animal-perhaps happier
than the average man-and nature has
bestowed upon it gifts as admirable as
any we have, except our brains.
There is great mystery about
moles. They live in the dark under
ground, but yet they are sun worship
ers, Just at the hour OF noon, when
the sun is at its highest point in the
sky, the mole often comes to the sur
face. 1t is habit OF the race, kind
Of religious observance, one might
| think.
Seldom does mole willingly make
its appearance in the upper world at
any other time OF the day, but at that
moment they come OF their own ac-
cord. This fact, which has been OBJ
served again and again, has never been
explained by naturalists. 1t is re-
minder of the time when moles lived
like most other animals on top Of
the ground7 Is there in them racial
memory which irresistibly leads them
back at intervals to the gates of their
ancestral paradiseP
Man himself began by worshiping
1 the sun; that was his first religion.
| The traces OF ancient sun worship are
all over the earth wherever man has
been. It's influence can be seen yet
today in many religious ceremonials,
Images, constructions, observances and
ideas. The traditional orientation
(that is, facing) of the great Christian
cathedrals. as OF the splendid Egyptian
and Greek temples, is survival OF the
ancient custom of fronting such build
ings with reference to some particular
aspect of the sun.
Is the entrance gallery of the moles
a similar, instructive survival? This
question may not be so altogether fool
| ish as it looks. The whole active life
OF the mole is subteranean. 1t is
born underground and passes its life
underground. AS far as the means OF
/ livelihood are concerned it appears to
be independent of the upper world.
1t finds all it needs TO eat and all is
needs to make itself comfortable, with
out resort to things above ground.
/ The roots of plants furnish it with the
fine lining that it uses for its nests,
and its burrows, running close under
the surface, so that they swell up the
earth above them in winding ridges,
are sufficiently aereated by the air that
leaks down thru the loose open soil.
Earthworms and insect larvae furnish
all the food it needs.
When it drives its subterranean ways
along line Of springing garden plants,
or under a grass plot, it finds what il
wants in the matter OF food and ma
terial without needing to 60 out into
the daylight. Why, then, at high
noon, does it come out, for no othel
apparent object than to look at the sur
or to enjoy its genial toucha We may
at least imaginately, call the sun the
mole's god.
But remembering the common belize
that a mole is blind, you may ask;
How can it see the sum-" The
myth of the blindness of moles has
been brushed away Some species,
perhaps, can not see, but most Of them
can. Their eyes are very small and
hidden in the fine hair, but they serve
as organs OF vision.
Still they can have very little use
for them under ground Anv leakinos