WORMS. 41 



vellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant 

 state, should be nursed by a she -wolf, than that a 

 poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and 

 cherished by a bloody grimalkin. 



t. 



LETTER LXXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SEL BORNE, May 20, 1777. 

 DEAR SIR, 



LANDS that are subject to frequent inundations* 

 are always poor ; and, probably, the reason may be, 

 because the worms are drowned. The most insigni- 

 ficant insects and reptiles are of much more conse- 

 quence, and have much more influence in the economy 

 of Nature, than the incurious are aware of ; and are 

 mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which 

 renders them less an object of attention ; and from 

 their numbers and fecundity. Earth-worms, though 

 in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain 

 of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable 

 chasm. For to say nothing of half the birds, and 

 some quadrupeds, which are almost entirely supported 

 by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of 

 vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without 

 them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, 

 and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of 

 plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves into 

 it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite 

 numbers of lumps of earth, called worm-casts, which, 

 being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and 

 grass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills 

 and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ; 

 and they affect slopes, probably, to avoid being flooded. 



