NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



man to be "a brother to the worm." This reminder of 

 his comparative insignificance, and of inevitable fellow- 

 ships in his last sleep, has not always been graciously 

 received. But Dr. Darwin compelled us to see that in 

 real fraternal helpfulness the earth worm is one of our 

 greatest benefactors, and that we need not be ashamed 

 to call it "brother." It is now classic ground to the 

 naturalist, that English field wherein the great man of 

 science demonstrated, by long and patient observation 

 and calculation, that earth worms, in the course of a 

 few years, brought up an amount of soil that raised the 

 entire surface of the meadow a large fraction of an inch. 



Every one has observed the "casts" reared by these 

 humble toilers into small, rugose, conical heaps in yard 

 and field. Conceive that process, as wrought over the 

 whole face of the globe, from the time that these annelids 

 were introduced until the present. Even at a far less 

 rate of progress than that established by Darwin — and 

 it was much greater rather than less — you will see how 

 much the earth worms may have done to earn from us 

 the title of "brother." Here, at least, Darwin and the 

 divines agree. 



What is true herein of earth worms is true of many 

 insects. Innumerable and usually invisible hosts of 

 beetles and their fellows chew up vegetation and help 

 convert it into wood-mould. That, in part, is the crude 

 material for tillable soil. When the woodman's axe has 

 deforested the hills, and when rains have absorbed antl 

 floods have transported the rich substance to lower levels 

 intermingled with pulverized rocks, a sphere has been 

 prepared for agricultural man. 



But in a manner more closely resembling the earth 

 worm's, insects have contributed, and still contribute, to 



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