Chap. I. THEIR SENSES. 31 



On two occasions, however, the surface was 

 well watered, and was thus rendered some- 

 what compact. After the hits of cabbage and 

 onion had been removed, I looked beneath 

 them to see whether the worms had acci- 

 dentally come up from below, but there was 

 no sign of a burrow; and twice the buried 

 objects were laid on pieces of tin-foil which 

 were not in the least displaced. It is ol 

 course possible that the worms whilst moving 

 about on the surface of the ground, with their 

 tails affixed within their burrows, may have 

 poked their heads into the places where the 

 above objects were buried ; but I have never 

 seen worms acting in this manner. Some 

 pieces of cabbage-leaf and of onion were twice 

 buried beneath very fine ferruginous sand, 

 which was slightly pressed down and well 

 watered, so as to be rendered very compact, 

 and these pieces were never discovered. On 

 a third occasion the same kind of sand was 

 neither pressed down nor watered, and the 

 pieces of cabbage were discovered and re- 

 moved after the second night. These several 

 facts indicate that worms possess some power 

 of smell ; and that they discover by this 



