12 HABITS OF WORMS. ■ Chap. I. 



Park, where the ground beneath was bare of 

 all vegetation, not a single casting could be 

 fjund over wide spaces, even during the 

 autumn. Nevertheless, castings were abun- 

 dant on some grass-covered glades and in- 

 dentations which penetrated this forest. On 

 the mountains of North Wales and on the 

 Alps, worms, as 1 have been informed, are in 

 most places rare ; and this may perhaps be 

 due to the close proximity of the sub- 

 jacent rocks, into which worms cannot 

 burrow during the winter so as to escape 

 being frozen. Dr. Mcintosh, however, found 

 worm-castings at a height of 1500 feet on 

 Schiehallion in Scotland. They are numerous 

 on some hills near Turin at from 2000 to 

 3000 feet above the sea, and at a great 

 altitude on the Nilgiri Mountains in South 

 India and on the Himalaya. 



Earth-worms must be considered as terres- 

 trial animals, though they are still in one 

 sense semi-aquatic, like the other members of 

 the great class of annelids to which they 

 belong. M. Perrier found that their ex- 

 posure to the dry air of a room for only a 

 single night was fatal to them. On the 



