OF SELBORNE. 201 



from habit, she become as much delighted with this foundling 

 as if it had been her real offspring. 



This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance 

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

 children being sometimes nurtured 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 suck- 

 ing leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody 

 grimalkin. 



" viridi fcetam Mavortis in antro 



" Procubuisse lupam : geininos huic ubera circum 

 " Ludere pendentes pueros, et lanibere matrem 

 " Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 

 " Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



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, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it 

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



