022 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of a new earth-worm. The species is very large, and, compared with 

 our common angle-Avorm, it is very curious. It has multiplied in the 

 hot-houses of the department so as to have become a real pest. It is 

 believed to have been introduced from Japan in the earth with the 

 plants imported in the expedition under Commodore Perry. Mr. 

 Glover seems to think it is the same as the worm now doing much 

 damage to pot-plants in the hot-house conservatories of England, and 

 quotes Mr. Fish in the English Gardener's Chronicle, who speaks of 

 " the eel-worm " as " probably a tropical relation of the common earth- 

 worm, as it cannot live out-of-doors in the climate of England, and 

 scarcely subsists in a greenhouse, but revels in the temperature of a 

 plant-store or orchideous house. It differs from the .common worm in 

 its mode of locomotion, and in several of its habits. It comes out at 

 night on walls, stone floors, etc., and is as quick as an adder in its 

 movements when disturbed. It seems impossible to eradicate it ; it 

 appears to breed with extraordinary rapidity, and is endowed with 

 great muscular power, so much so that it is somewhat difficult to hold 

 a large specimen between the thumb and finger. Lime-water, which 

 is a sovereign remedy against the common earth-worm, appears to have 

 little influence on it, and the only effective mode of destruction is to 

 turn out the soil from the pot and catch and kill the intruder, taking 

 care, however, not to knock or jar the plant, as this worm, instead of 

 coming to the surface on being disturbed, like the common worm, will 

 instantly recede to the centre of the ball of earth and remain there un- 

 disturbed. Mr. W. Baird speaks of a worm under the name of Mega- 

 scolex (Perichoeta) diffringens, found in three different gardens in Eng- 

 land, in hot-stove houses, which is probably the same as the eel- 

 worm referred to by Mr. Fish." 



If, in the blatant ethics of the pot-house politician, <: eternal vigi- 

 lance is the price of liberty," in a sense certainly of equal importance 

 it behooves that, even in disseminating these matters for the common 

 good, science should dictate the method, and the economist practise 

 the care that shall conserve the good while it separates the bad. But 

 only of its best and noblest minds can the age exact the task of sepa- 

 rating wisely and well its blessings and its bane. 



