1 84 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum- 

 stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of 

 exposed children being sometimes nutured by female wild 

 beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not 

 one whit more marvellous 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. 



" viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 



Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum 

 Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 

 Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 

 Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." 



LETTER XXXV 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, May 20, 1770. 

 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 insignificant insects and reptiles 

 are of much more consequence, and have much more 

 influence in the oeconomy 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, per- 

 forating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious 

 to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and 



