226 WORMS. 



bably provide new soils for hills and slopes where the rain 

 washes the earth way ; and they affect slopes, probably, to 

 avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers express their 

 detestation of worms ;* the former, because they render their 

 walks unsightly, and make them much work : and the latter, 

 because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But 

 these men would find, that the earth without worms would 

 soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation ; 

 and, consequently, sterile : and, besides, in favour of worms, 

 it should be hinted, that green corn, plants and flowers are 

 not so much injured by them as by many species of coleoptera 

 (scarabs), and tipulce (long-legs), in their larva or grub-state; 

 and by unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called 

 slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc 

 in the field and garden.f 



These hints we think proper to throw out, in order to set 

 the inquisitive and discerning to work. 



A good monography of worms would afford much enter- 



* We are indebted to Charles Darwin, Esq., for a remarkable and interest- 

 ing memoir on the utility of the earth-worm, read before the Geologic;il 

 Society. The worm-casts, which so much annoy the gardener by deforming 

 his smooth-shaven lawns, are of no small importance to the agriculturist ; and 

 this despised creature is not only of great service in loosening the earth, and 

 rendering it permeable by air and water, but is also a most active and power- 

 ful agent in adding to the depth of the soil, and in covering comparatively 

 barren tracts with a superficial layer of wholesome mould. The author's 

 attention was directed by Mr. Wedgwood, of Maer Hall, Staffordshire, to 

 several fields, some of which had a few years before been covered with lime, 

 and others with burnt marl and cinders, which substances in every case are 

 now buried to the depth of some inches below the turf, just as if, as the 

 farmers believe, the particles had worked themselves down. After showing 

 the impossibility of this supposed operation, the author affirms that the whole 

 is due to the digestive process by which the common earth-worm is sup- 

 ported; since, on carefully examining between the blades of grass in the fields 

 above-mentioued, he found that there was scarcely a space of two inches 

 square without a little heap of cylindrical castings of worms ; it being well 

 known that worms swallow the earthy matter, and that having separated the 

 serviceable portion, they eject at the mouth of their burrows the remainder in 

 little intestine-shaped heaps. Still more recently Mr. Darwin has noticed a 

 more remarkable instance of this kind, in which, in the course of eighty year?, 

 the earth-worm had covered a field then manured with marl, with a bed of 

 earth, averaging thirteen inches in thickness. 



j* Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says, that this spring (1777) about four 

 acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which swarmed 

 on the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. 



