With the Hedgehog we make our acquaintance with the order Insectivora, which is represented in Britain by five species only: the others being the Mole and three Shrews. In many respects they are similar to the Rodentia, but the incisor teeth have not the chisel-shape of the latter, and the molar teeth instead of having grinding crowns have them developed into pointed eminences more suited for piercing the chitinous armour of beetles, etc. The skeleton is furnished with clavicles or collar-bones. There are five toes on each of the feet, furnished with claws, and the animal walks on its soles. Our native species represent three distinct families: _Erinacidæ_ (Hedgehog), _Talpidæ_ (Mole), and _Soricidæ_ (Shrews). *Mole* (_Talpa europæa_, Linn.). However slight may be their personal acquaintance with the Mole himself, his engineering work is only too evident to every possessor of a garden. He may, perchance, live in a neighbour's land, but from time to time we shall find some morning that he has driven a tunnel right across the lawn or the tennis-court, marring its hitherto fair surface with an ugly ridge and at intervals a little heap of raw earth. If we are sufficiently self-controlled to dissemble our inward rage, we may get some countervailing good out of the calamity. If we bring a garden chair and sit quietly within range of the newest heap, our quiet watching may be rewarded by a sight of the clever little engineer, and we may be restrained from throwing stones at him by the thought that he is seeking to reduce the number of those worm-casts on the lawn that have always annoyed us so. If the tunnelling work is not yet completed, we shall see a heaving of the fresh heap of soil, and after a short interval the sharp, black snout of the Mole will be pushed up from the centre to sniff the air and ascertain if it is safe for him to make a fuller appearance. Satisfied that it is so, he exhibits his shoulders and the broad shovel-shaped hands with which he has accomplished all this navigator's work. Now he is right out, even to his ridiculous little tail, and so to speak swimming over the turf--for he cannot walk on his forefeet, the hands being set sideways for his shovelling work.