is fain to dig her self a Dwelling there. And she making her
way through so thick an Element, which will not yield easily, as the Air
or _the Wafer, it had been dangerous to have drawn so long a Train
behind her; for her Enemy might fall upon her Rear, and fetch her out,
before she had compleated or got full Possession of her Works_.

I cannot forbear mentioning Mr. _Boyle's_ Remark upon this last
Creature, who I remember somewhere in his Works observes, [5] that
though the Mole be not totally blind (as it is commonly thought) she has
not Sight enough to distinguish particular Objects. Her Eye is said to
have but one Humour in it, which is supposed to give her the Idea of
Light, but of nothing else, and is so formed that this Idea is probably
painful to the Animal. Whenever she comes up into broad Day she might be
in Danger of being taken, unless she were thus affected by a Light
striking upon her Eye, and immediately warning her to bury herself in
her proper Element. More Sight would be useless to her, as none at all
might be fatal.

I have only instanced such Animals as seem the most imperfect Works of
Nature; and if Providence shews it self even in the Blemishes of these
Creatures, how much more does it discover it self in the several
Endowments which it has variously bestowed upon such Creatures as are
more or less finished and compleated in their several Faculties,
according to the condition of Life in which they are posted.

I could wish our Royal Society would compile a Body of Natural History,
the best that could be gather'd together from Books and Observations. If
the several Writers among them took each his particular Species, and
gave us a distinct Account of its Original, Birth and Education; its
Policies, Hostilities and Alliances, with the Frame and Texture of its
inward and outward Parts, and particularly those that distinguish it
from all other Animals, with their peculiar Aptitudes for the State of
Being in which Providence has placed them, it would be one of the best
Services their Studies could do Mankind, and not a little redound to the
Glory of the All-wise Contriver.

It is true, such a Natural History, after all the Disquisitions of the
Learned, would be infinitely Short and Defective. Seas and Desarts hide
Millions of Animals from our Observation. Innumerable Artifices and
Stratagems are acted in the _Howling Wilderness_ and in the _Great
Deep_, that can never come to our Knowledge. Besides th