210 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



LETTER LXXVII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DA1NES BARRINGTON. 



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 

 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 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 and 

 twigs 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. Gardeners and farmers express their 

 detestation of worms; the former because they render their 

 walks unsightly, and make them much work : and the latte r 

 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 con- 

 sequently 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 coleoptcra (scarabs) and 

 tipulcc (long-legs) in their larva, or grub-state; and by unnoticed 

 myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs, which silently 



