THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 65 



their sense of smell at best is very feeble ; and they 

 do not seem to have any great amount of sense. So 

 we cannot look on them as gifted creatures. Yet they 

 have their task to do, and they do it perseveringly. 



A part of it is the dragging of fallen leaves under- 

 ground. Have you ever remarked how the piles of 

 autumn leaves gradually disappear? They are not all 

 swept up and carried away by gardeners. In a garden 

 or a park this may account for a good many, but not in 

 fields and woods. Yet there, too, in time they silently 

 vanish. 



And the worms have a hand here. They are believed 

 to swallow a certain amount of the softer parts of 

 leaves; and they draw goodly supplies into the soil 

 for stopping up the holes of their burrows. If you 

 keep a look-out you may sometimes find a twisted leaf 

 sticking out of the ground only half pulled under by a 

 worm. 



Besides supplying the soil with dead leaves to serve 

 as manure they take in large quantities of the soil itself 

 as food. And this is all cast out again by them, enriched 

 and improved and fitted for use. It has been said, 

 indeed, that the whole of the soil in a garden or a field 

 passes in time through the bodies of the worms, being 

 thus prepared for its work. 



One would never guess what numbers of worms are 

 in the ground ; sometimes as many as tens of thousands 

 in one acre, or in one garden or field. Birds are per- 

 petually after them, yet still multitudes remain. 



One day I saw a blackbird that had just found a 

 long fat worm. He had, no doubt, four hungry little 

 ones at home, for he proceeded scientifically to cut the 



