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 ordinary mole of the dry uplands and well-drained meadows, by any means, or he would not have been running his deep tunnel here in the cool, almost swampy soil within a few yards of the meandering channel of the Lost Water. In shape and color he was not unlike the common mole—with his thick, powerful neck of about the same size as his body, his great, long-clawed, immensely strong, handlike forefeet, and his mellow, velvety, shadowy, gray-brown fur. But his tail was much longer, and thicker at the base, than that of his plebeian cousin of the lawns. And his nose—that was something of a distinction which no other beast in the world, great or small, could boast of. From all round its tip radiated a fringe of feelers, no less than twenty-two innumber, naked, flexible, miraculously sensitive, each one a little nailless, interrogating finger. It entitled him, beyond question, to the unique title of Starnose.

This tireless worker in the dark was driving a new tunnel—partly, no doubt, for the sake of worms, grubs, and pupae which he might find on the way, and partly for purposes known only to himself. At the lever where he was digging, a scant foot below the surface, the mould, though damp, was fairly light and workable, owing to the abundance of fine roots and decayed leaf-