60 



PETER SCHMIDT 



TABLE 1 



The exsiccated earthworms, having lost even 33.4 per cent of 

 the weight, are wrinkled and completely motionless, but placed 

 on moistened filter-paper they quickly revive and regain their 

 normal size. This observation excited my interest, but absence 

 of material in wintertime prevented the continuation of the 

 experiments. 



In the summer of 1917 I spent one month in the Experimental 

 Agricultural Station Nikolaievskaya, belonging to the Petrograd 

 Agricultural College. The chemical laboratory of the station is 

 provided with all that was necessary for my study, and I profited 

 by this occasion to continue my experiments. 



The question that I proposed to solve was to find out the most 

 convenient methods of exsiccation and of revivification of the 

 worms and to determine the percentage of the loss of w^ater which 

 still leaves the possibility to revive. 



The earthworms, belonging to the species Allolobophora 

 foetida, were dug out in the garden and then kept on moistened 

 filter-paper in a glass dish for two or three days, so that their 

 gut was cleaned from the earth it contained, which otherwise 

 would have disturbed the experiments. Before weighing, the 

 worm was always dried with the filter-paper and then placed in a 

 small glass dish, previously weighed on a chemical balance, and 

 tied up with a bit of muslin. After weighing, the glass dish with 

 the worm was placed in a desiccator with calcium chloride. Twice 

 or three times a day all the glass dishes were weighed and the 

 percentage of loss calculated. The exsiccation was occasionally 

 delayed by the withdrawal of the glass dish from the desiccator. 

 If I considered the exsiccation to be sufficient, I took out the earth- 



